July 4: The High Court has allowed permission to the developers of the grounded vessel Zhen Don, to lay down a temporary road to defuel the vessel. The order was passed by Justice R M Lodha of the Bombay High Court on Thursday.In the order, Raj Pradhan the developer has agreed to remove the path one month after the sludge was removed.The Zhen Don which ran aground off Carter Road in June last year was purchased by Pradhan for conversion into India's first-ever floating hotel. Accordingly, the ship was first defuelled of its residual oil. Permission for building a temporary pathway to the stranded ship to extract the oil sludge from its holds was given by the suburban collector Sanjay Chahande in May this year.However, the order was subsequently revoked by Chahande on May 30 after a delegation of the Bandra Residents' Association met him and protested that the road was a violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) and would become a permanent access to the proposed floatel.Pradhan approached the vacation bench of the Bombay High Court who issued a status quo order. As per Thursday's order, the collector has no objections to the construction of a 650-metre long temporary pathway to the stranded ship. Both his earlier orders suspending and later revoking permission to construct the path have been waived.According to sources, the collector consented to the path after being briefed by the Coast Guard about the danger of sludge spilling into the sea during the monsoons.The developer has undertaken to remove the two feet high, six feet wide, temporary pathway one month after the completion of sludge removal.``Due to lack of electricity in the ship, the sludge could be removed only by day and during low tide,'' Rohit Shetty, lawyer for the petitioners said.
