Summary
Extensive clearance of tea bushes and shade trees for the proposed Silchar airport breached the requirement of prior environmental clearance. It could not be justified as routine cultivation, and NGT had failed to investigate the grievance. Development policy does not excuse environmental noncompliance. The appeals were allowed, unlawful site activity restrained and any environmental-clearance application required to be assessed against the site’s condition before the illegal clearance.
Issues
- Whether airport-site vegetation clearance without prior environmental clearance violated the EIA notification.
- Whether NGT properly dismissed the environmental grievance without investigation.
- What safeguards should govern further site activity and clearance processing.
Provisions considered
- Paragraph 2 and Schedule entry 7(a), Environmental Impact Assessment Notification dated 14 September 2006Prior clearance is required before project construction or land preparation, apart from securing land. Extensive airport-site vegetation removal fell within the prohibited preparatory activity. (¶¶ 7, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24)
Held
- The court-appointed site report and recorded statements disclosed extensive removal, including over forty-one lakh tea bushes and observed tree cutting. Witness statements had not been cross-examined, but aligned prima facie with the Circle Officer’s account. The record refuted the attempt to characterise this organised airport-site operation as ordinary tea cultivation. (¶¶ 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
- Paragraph 2 requires prior environmental clearance before construction or land preparation, except securing land. The extensive clearing for the proposed airport breached that requirement; policy justification for a civilian airport could not displace mandatory environmental safeguards. (¶¶ 7, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22)
- As the statutory environmental expert tribunal, NGT had a duty to verify the grievance. Dismissing it merely because environmental clearance had not yet issued, without even preliminary examination of ongoing site activity, abdicated that adjudicatory responsibility. (¶¶ 16, 17)
- No activity at the proposed Silchar greenfield-airport site may breach the EIA notification. Any existing or future environmental-clearance application must be processed by reference to the site’s condition before the illegal clearance of bushes and shade trees, rather than treating the altered state as the baseline. (¶¶ 23, 24)
- The State’s application seeking proceedings against the appellants was not pressed. The appeals were allowed, NGT’s 25 January 2024 order set aside and pending applications disposed of. (¶¶ 18, 25, 26)
Result
Appeals allowed; NGT order set aside. Activity contrary to the EIA notification restrained; clearance applications to use the site’s pre-illegal-clearance condition.