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The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has quashed the stage II forest clearance awarded to Essar-Hindalco’s Mahan Coal Ltd and four more coal blocks. The move comes just two days after the Supreme Court cancelled allocation of 204 coal blocks, one of which was Mahan.
The NGT bench said that in view of the Supreme Court ruling on September 24, the appeal does “not survive for consideration and have been rendered infructuous without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties. Hence, these appeals are dismissed.”
However, the fate of environmental and social impact assessment studies of these 204 cancelled projects, some of which were found to have aberrations, hangs in balance.
Ritwick Dutta, a lawyer in the Supreme Court, said, “There is a provision of transferability of environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports. So, EIA clearances do not necessarily lapse automatically.”
However, he said the NGT bench’s order on Friday on Mahan and four other coal blocks, found the appeals to be “infructuous” due to the irregularities found in the blocks. This, he said, should render the EIAs void. “Further, any change in projects (post re-allocation) will require fresh reports and clearances,” he said.
Mahan Coal has been in the eye of the storm with raging local protests. The Mahan Sangharsh Samiti had approached the National Green Tribunal earlier this year after the previous UPA Government had pushed forth stage II forest clearance for the block.
Since the allocation of 204 coal blocks have been cancelled on the grounds of legal irregularities, all clearances granted to these projects – environmental as well as forest – would stand cancelled as well.
“We cannot assume that the same companies will get the same mines post re-allocation. Clearances were taken by individual companies and all the process – environmental clearances, forest clearances, environmental and social impact assessments – should start afresh,” said Priya Pillai, an environmental activist with the GreenPeace India.
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