Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed the directive of the union Ministry of Environment and Forests to Lavasa Corporation to stop construction of a township in a hill station in Maharashtra, calling the order "drastic" passed without giving prior hearing.
A division bench of Justices DK Deshmukh and ND Deshpande asked Lavasa Corporation to approach MOEF by or on December 9.
MOEF will give Lavasa a hearing as to whether construction work should be stayed and pass order on this issue by December 16.
The court also accepted the statement by the Lavasa lawyer that the Corporation will not carry out any construction meanwhile, that is till December 16th, when the court will hear the case next.
MOEF had on November 25 issued a showcause notice to Lavasa, which is developing a hill-station in Mulshi, Pune district, as to why it did not obtain environmental clearances as per Environment Protection Act and a 2004 notification. It also asked LC to stop the construction at the site.
Lavasa has challenged both the notice and the stay.
The High Court on Tuesday asked MOEF "why no notice was given to the petitioner (Lavasa) before stay (to construction)".
Additional Solicitor General Darius Khambata argued that in environmental matters, MOEF could pass such an order without hearing. MOEF was ready to give a hearing to LC anytime and pass final order by December 31, he said.
But the High Court said the stay order was "drastic".
The bench also asked why MOEF issued the notice last month when the work at Lavasa project had started in 2004.
"You could have stopped them in 2004," the bench said, adding the show-cause notice must have stated the reason for staying the construction without prior hearing.
When Khambata argued that the stay to construction was in "public interest", the judges asked "what was public interest doing for the last six years? How did you ignore it for six years?"
Khambata then pointed out that in 2008, state town development department had told Lavasa that it needed MOEF clearances. "The construction is patently illegal," he said.
But judges said that "in this country even a criminal has right to hearing".
Lavasa lawyer, senior counsel Shekhar Nafade, argued that the Corporation has done a lot for the environment in the area. "There was no environment there earlier. We have planted six lakh trees...It is now a small California."
He argued the stay should be lifted because Lavasa was losing Rs 5 crore a day. However, the court said Lavasa must make a statement that no work would be carried out while MOEF heard it on the issue of the stay.
The court also directed MOEF to give a hearing to National Alliance of People's Movements and activist PC Ahuja a hearing. MOEF issued a showcause notice only following NAPM's complaint, said its lawyer YP Singh.
Singh also said the real issue here was not environment but "corruption" and alleged that Supriya Sule, Union Minister Sharad Pawar's daughter, held shares of the Lavasa Corporation at one time.
Comments
0 comment