RAJI MATHEW Vs. DIRECTORATE OF MINING AND GEOLOGY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As all these writ petitions involve a common issue, they are taken up for consideration together and disposed by this common judgment.

(2.) In all these writ petitions, the petitioners are persons who are engaged in stone quarrying and crushing operations. It is not in dispute that they all hold quarrying leases/permits issued by the statutory authorities under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 read with the Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 2015. It would appear that the petitioners had all approached the respective Environment Impact Assessment Authorities (either district level or State level) under the Environment (Protection) Act, Rules and Notifications issued there under, for the purposes of obtaining an Environmental Clearance certificate. The applications submitted by the petitioners were not considered/processed by the respective Environment Impact Assessment Authorities on the ground that there was an ambiguity with regard to whether or not the area, where the quarrying/crushing operations were proposed, fell within the ambit of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) as notified by the Central Government, in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. In the writ petitions, the prayers sought for are essentially to direct the respective Environment Impact Assessment Authorities to process the applications for Environmental Clearance, expeditiously, by treating the petitioners project as falling under non-ESA category.

(3.) A counter affidavit has been filed for and on behalf of the additional 7th respondent in WP(C) No.31959 of 2017, wherein the details of the steps taken by the Committee constituted by the State Government to finalise the cadastral map of ESA villages is narrated and it is stated that, after identifying particular villages in the State, which could be categorised as ecologically sensitive areas, a further survey was done so as to identify the particular areas within those villages, which could be categorised as ESA for the purposes of the draft notification issued by the Central Government in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.