New Delhi, May 15 (). The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the Andhra Pradesh government’s plea challenging the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order quashing the Environment Clearance (EC) granted to the Avulapalle reservoir.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi urged Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud that this is an exceptional case, where the EC of the reservoir was quashed by the NGT. The Chief Justice said that his bench would hear the matter on May 17 as it was a public project.
The state government said it is constrained to file the present civil appeal against the May 11 judgment passed by the National Green Tribunal (South Zone) for obtaining EC for the Avulapalli Balancing Reservoir in Chittoor and for alleged misrepresentations in its application. The government was reprimanded for this.
The NGT observed that while the final/proposed final water storage capacity of the project was 3.5 TMC, Andhra Pradesh deliberately applied for and obtained an EC authorizing water storage capacity of 2.5 TMC with a cultivable command area of only 9,700 hectares .
The state government’s plea, filed through advocate Mahfuz Nazki, states that the said finding is completely wrong. It was nobody’s case that more than 2.5 TMC of storage capacity is being used for the ABR project, or that any more than 9,700 hectares of cultivable command area is being constructed.
There was no occasion to discuss whether any misrepresentation was resorted to by the State of Andhra Pradesh.
The petition argues that such a question arises only if the project proponent, which is the state of Andhra Pradesh, actually takes any steps to go beyond the 2.5 TMC water storage capacity or cultivable command area of 9,700 hectares.
The plea said, whenever any subsequent phase of the ABR project is implemented, the State shall take steps to apply for EC in that regard, as is a common practice while implementing such projects.
SGK
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