The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Stay declined on Sethu project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Stay declined on Sethu project

Special Correspondent

"NGO can appeal to Environment Authority"

CHENNAI: : The Madras High Court on Thursday declined to stay any of the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project-related activities, but directed the Centre to appoint a Chairperson for the statutory National Environment Appellate Authority within three months.

Disposing of a petition filed by the Coastal Action Network (CAN) seeking to quash the March 31 Environmental Impact Assessment clearance given to the project, a Division Bench comprising Justice N. Dhinakar and Justice M. Chockalingam, gave liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal before the Authority against the project.

While the Chairperson, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court or Chief Justice of a High Court, shall be appointed in 30 days from the date of receipt of the order, the petitioner can file an appeal before the Authority within 30 days thereafter. On its part, the Centre, represented by the Additional Solicitor-General of India, V.T. Gopalan, said it would not oppose the delay in preferring the appeal.

The CAN co-convener, O. Fernandes, filed the plea stating that the SSCP was based on a study that was "scientifically incomplete," and that it was being "pushed by parties having a role in the stability of the ruling coalition" at the Centre.

Report incomplete

When the matter was taken up for hearing , senior counsel for the petitioner, V. Prakash, submitted that the Rapid Environment Impact Assessment Report conducted by the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the public hearings on the issue were incomplete.

When the Bench sought to know whether any alternative remedy existed, Mr. Gopalan said there was a National Environment Appellate Authority, and that the petitioner ought to have moved it first. To this, Mr. Prakash said the forum was without a Chairperson since 2000. As the "judicial component" of the Authority was missing, the Vice-Chairman, a retired Secretary of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest, was holding additional charge.

"How can we go before an Authority which was not properly constituted, and headed by a retired bureaucrat from the respondent-Ministry itself?" asked Mr. Prakash.

Mr. Gopalan, maintaining that the Vice-Chairman was legally entitled to discharge the functions of the Chairperson, said that if the absence were the grievance of the petitioner, the Centre would fill the post within a timeframe.

The Bench agreed to the suggestion, and asked the petitioner to approach the Authority within 30 days after the appointment of a Chairperson.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu