Will punish realty projects that violate green laws, says Centre

CHENNAI: Real estate projects that violate environment norms will face punishment, the Union Environment Ministry assured the Madras High Court. The commitment to take action against the developers who commenced projects without obtaining mandatory environment clearance came as the six-month window for violators to seek post-facto clearance ended.
“Case-by-case assessment will be done and clearances issued. For violations, prosecution will be initiated under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986,” Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) counsel S Rathnasabapathy submitted.

In response, the bench headed by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee directed the ministry to give a written submission on prosecuting violators, and also submit the status report on the number applications processed and the clearances given. The court has reserved the orders.
The bench was hearing final arguments over a petition filed by R Kothandaraman, president of Puducherry Environment Protection against the March 14 notification by the Centre which provided six-month window for violators to get post-facto clearances for projects. The petitioner had contended that this window watered down the strict provisions.

In the last six months, the ministry received over 2,000 requests from project proponents for post facto environment clearance and another 2,100 applications for Terms of Reference (ToR), which are under process. In Tamil Nadu, there are 118 projects that have flouted the environmental norms.
The notification had attracted criticism as allegedly providing succour to violators of environmental law, and regularise violations that are committed despite the existence of laws. However, the ministry’s counsel assured the High Court that this was the last opportunity.

The notification was necessitated after the National Green Tribunal set aside the office memoranda which dealt with violation cases, on the grounds that the proposed arrangements cannot be made through office memorandum since it cannot incorporate something which is not provided in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006.So this new arrangement to deal with cases of violation (opening a window for six months only) has been established through the notification under the EP Act, a ministry official said.