BOMBAY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION GROUP Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two writ petitions seek to challenge the permissions granted by both the State and the Central Governments to the Bombay Suburban Electric Supply Company Limited (hereafter "the Company") for establishing a 500 mega thermal power station (for short "the said project") at village Agval, Taluka Dahanu, District Thane. The petitioners in Writ Petition No. 4550 of 1989 are the Bombay Environmental Action Group and one Saad Ali and the petitioners in Writ Petition No. 993 of 1990 are the residents as a group of Dahanu taluka claiming interest in the subject matter of the said project.

(2.) WE have heard respective Counsel at great length. We have also gone through the petitions and the several detail affidavits filed by either side and have given our anxious consideration to the pros and cons and the various factors and circumstances to which our attention was invited by Counsel on either side.

(3.) IN 1988 the Environment Department of the Government of Maharashtra granted site clearance from the environmental angle to the said project. The clearance was subject to as many as fifteen stringent conditions, one of which required the company to obtain all requisite clearances from various authorities. In March 1989 the Department of Environment, Forest and Wild Life, Government of India, wrote to the Secretary, Department of Power, Ministry of Energy, that the proposal for setting up the said project in Dahanu was examined from environmental angle and the approval of the Ministry of Environment and Forest to the said project subject to terms and conditions was conveyed. Here again as many as fifteen conditions have been imposed stating that the enforcement of the stipulated conditions will, amongst others, be under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, as also the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.