Staff Reporter
Guwahati: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) principal bench at New Delhi has asked the Assam government and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to file a supplementary affidavit regarding environmental clearance for the Assam Police commando camps built on forest land in Hailakandi district.
The Original Application, registered suo motu by NGT, involves the issue of the legality of the diversion of 44 hectares of protected forest land for a Commando Battalion headquarters in Barak Valley and illegal construction for that purpose inside the Inner Line of Reserved Forest in Hailakandi district.
A bench, headed by NGT chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and comprising judicial member Justice Sudhir Agarwal and expert member A Senthil Vel, issued the directions in the suo motu matter, which said, “Learned Counsel for the proposed intervenor has also raised an issue that no EC (environmental clearance) has been obtained for the project. It will be open to respondents, the State of Assam and MoEF&CC to file supplementary affidavits in this regard,” said the recent NGT order.
During the hearing, advocate Parul Gupta, appearing for Assam-based intervenor, submitted before the bench that the construction in Hailakandi should attract provisions of the Environment Impact Notification (EIA), 2006, due to the large expanse of forest land involved.
The NGT bench also pulled up the Environment Ministry and sought to know the action taken against the violation of forest conservation laws over the construction of the camp.
Last year, the Environment Ministry had found that the construction was done in violation of the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, as no prior approvals were obtained from the Centre. The Environment Ministry’s regional office in Shillong had said that M K Yadava, currently serving as a Special Secretary (Forest) on extension in the Assam government, was “deemed guilty” under the Adhiniyam, 1980, and was liable for punishment for directing use of forest land for non-forestry purposes without prior approvals from the Centre.
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