SRIDEVI DATLA Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is aggrieved by an order of the National Green Tribunal (hereafter referred to as "the NGT"[1]) and has, therefore, approached this Court under Section 22 of the NGT Act. The NGT rejected her appeal, preferred to it against the environmental clearance for construction of the Greenfield International Airport, Bhogapuram, Vishakapatnam, which had been sought for by the fifth respondent.

(2.) The facts are simple: the fifth respondent (hereafter called "the Project Applicant") proposed the construction of a new Greenfield international airport. As was required by law and extant statutory notifications, it applied to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (hereinafter, the "MoEF") to seek environmental clearance. The MoEF, after following the prescribed procedure, which included ascertaining the views and objections of the concerned parties, the general public etc, indicated its approval by an order dated 14.08.2017. In terms of Section 19 of the NGT Act, the approval was posted on the website of the MoEF on 14.08.2017. Concededly, the Project Applicant published the approval in an English daily on 13.09.2017.

(3.) The appellant preferred her appeal to the NGT on 13.11.2017. Along with the appeal, she preferred an application for condonation of delay in approaching the NGT, given the stipulation of Section 19 that the appeal had to be preferred within 30 days from the date of communication of the order impugned. She explained that since the clearance and related documents were voluminous and the matter required some technical expertise, requiring the papers to be forwarded to experts and lawyers in Delhi, and the inter se communication delay, the NGT needed to condone the delay, in the interests of justice. After considering the submissions made by the appellant as well as the Project Applicant, which opposed the application for condonation of delay, the NGT, by its impugned order, rejected the appellant's application and consequently the appeal as well.