Why green activists and visitors to Cubbon Park are worried about the health of this Bengaluru lung space  Premium

Protests in Bengaluru's Cubbon Park against High Court annexe construction and traffic movement, sparking environmental concerns and legal battles.

For years now, regular visitors to Cubbon Park and walkers have protested against multiple decisions taken by the State government as they have perceived them as threats to the greenery of this previous lung space of Bengaluru.

The latest protest took place earlier this month when hundreds of citizens gathered near the Central Library in Cubbon Park to oppose two things — the State government’s proposal to construct a High Court annexe inside the park and the decision to let traffic inside the park on second and fourth Saturdays, which was banned earlier. The location for the annexe’s construction shifted after the protests, but the latter decision has not been rescinded as of now. Both of these issues are not new and have cropped up earlier.

The history of the proposed annexe to the High Court goes back to 2019. In September 2019, then Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa announced that the government was committed to the construction of a multi-storey building in the place of the old Chief Electoral office (inside Cubbon Park) to accommodate the administrative block of the High Court. This drew the ire of green activists and heritage conservationists. 

In the first week of November 2019, members of several citizen organisations from the city protested the proposal to construct a seven-storey building inside Cubbon Park, perceiving it as a threat to both the greenery and heritage value of the park. A PIL petition was also filed in the High Court. There was also a public petition which gained thousands of signatures demanding that the government drop its construction plans. Ultimately, there were no further developments in the matter and the activists assumed that the annexe construction was put to rest.

Fast forward to over four years later, in February 2024, the State government decided to revive the High Court annexe construction project. The Public Works Department (PWD) came up with a revised construction project proposal. This time, they proposed a 10-storey building.

The Horticulture Department, which maintains Cubbon Park, said although there was a proposal from PWD, no decisions were made about the construction. They said with the revisions in the project proposal, there were many things to consider.