HANUMAN LAXMAN AROSKAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Union of India in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change [MoEF-CC] moved these proceedings, seeking a direction that the Minutes of the fortieth meeting of the Expert Appraisal Committee [EAC] dated 23 April 2019 be taken on the record so that the embargo imposed by this Court on the Environmental Clearance [EC] for a greenfield airport at Mopa Goa can be lifted. This follows upon the judgment dated 23 April 2019 which was rendered on a challenge addressed to this Court against a decision of the National Green Tribunal [NGT] upholding the EC, subject to compliance with certain conditions. By the judgment of this Court, reported as Hanuman Laxman Aroskar v Union of India, (2019) SCCOnline SC 441, the process leading up to the grant of an EC on 28 October 2015 was held to be flawed. The directions that were imposed by the Court were formulated in the following terms:

(2.) The basis of the directions that were issued by this Court was formulated in the penultimate paragraph of the judgment which reads thus:

(3.) Essentially, the concerns which were highlighted in the judgment of this Court related to the need to preserve the biodiversity of the Western Ghats. These concerns have been the subject of a seminal exercise carried out in 2013 by a High Level Working Group [HLWG] on the Western Ghats chaired by Dr K Kasturirangan [Kasturirangan Committee report]. The report of the HLWG has been dwelt upon in the earlier judgment and continues to be a focal point of the continuing debate in the present case. The HLWG was constituted under the auspices of the MoEF-CC. Its report dated 15 April 2013 is a valuable contribution to the preservation of biodiversity in the pristine environment of the Western Ghats.