The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a last ditch effort by the Defence Ministry for getting the stay vacated on the scrapping of India’s first warship INS Vikrant. “There is a real urgency,” cited Centre’s counsel R Balasubramaniam as he pressed for vacating the order of “status quo” directed by a Supreme Court bench on May 5.
The Government informed the Vacation Bench that May 16 was the date for execution of the sale order for which auctioning was over and a sum of over `60 crore had been paid to a private company that agreed to reduce the mighty warship to scrap. But with the SC order coming its way, the process had been stalled.
The bench of Justices BS Chauhan and AK Sikri declined to intervene. “We are not going to modify this Court’s order.”The Court directed the Ministry to persuade the other bench which directed status quo and convince it to lift the stay once the Court reopened in July.
INS Vikrant had been in news after Defence Ministry’s decision to dismantle the iconic aircraft carrier inducted into the naval fleet in 1957. Activists who demanded the warship to be preserved as a maritime museum, had opposed to any move to bring down the ship and demanded that the ship should be handed over to any other port trust for better maintenance.
The demand did not find favour with the Mumbai High Court which in January dismissed a petition filed by one Kiran Paigankar and allowed the Government to go-ahead with its plans to scrap the ship. But on May 5, the SC entertained the appeal by Paigankar and issued notice to Defence Ministry on their demand to preserve the ship built by England and that played a vital role in the World War II.
The Defence Ministry is understood to have filed its response to the petition. According to the Centre, the ship was unsafe and was not viable to be preserved as a museum. It was for this reason it was decommissioned in 1997. Even the HC had accepted the contention of the Centre that the ship’s hull, almost 70 years old, was unfit to be preserved and hence required dismantling.
The auction finally led to a contract given to a Mumbai-based ship breaking company a month ago which was required to steer the ship off Mumbai coast by May 16.