Goa airport hits Supreme Court's 'green rule of law' hurdle

NEW DELHI: Goa’s new international airport project at Mopa has got a setback as the Supreme Court revised the environment impact assessment criteria from ‘sustainable development’ to a new ‘environmental rule of law’ norm for evaluating projects for grant of environmental clearance (EC).

Quoting UN’s ‘First Environmental Rule of Law Report’, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta said, “Evironmental rule of law provides an essential platform underpinning the four pillars of sustainable development - economic, social, environmental and peace... Environmental rule of law becomes a priority particularly when we acknowledge that benefits of environmental rule of law extends beyond the environmental sector.”

Applying the stricter norms, the bench suspended the environmental clearance to the Mopa airport after finding that the expert advisory committee (EAC) in the ministry of environment failed to notice vital errors in environmental impact assessment (EIA) report as the assessment failed to test the project area with regard to key parameters including number of trees to be felled, proximity of the airport to ecologically sensitive zones, presence of flora and fauna and impact on the geology of the area.

Rejecting arguments of the Union of India, government of Goa and project contractor GMR Goa International Airport Ltd, the bench said, “There can be no gambles with the environment: A ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ approach is simply unacceptable; unacceptable if we are to preserve environmental governance under the rule of law.”

Suspending the environmental clearance to Mopa airport project granted in October 2015, the bench asked the EAC to revisit the recommendations made by it for grant of EC within a month. “Upon reconsidering the matter in terms of the present directions, the EAC, if it allows the construction to proceed will impose such additional conditions which in its expert view will adequately protect the concerns about the terrestrial ecosystems noticed in this judgement,” the bench said and barred NGT or any court from interfering in the matter.

The judgement, authored by Justice Chandrachud for the bench, criticised EAC and NGT for failing in their jobs to scrutinise whether EC was granted with strict adherence to the norms set in the central notification of 2006.

“There were serious flaws in the decision-making process. Relevant material has been excluded from consideration and extraneous circumstances were borne in mind. The EAC as an expert body abdicated its obligations to make an expert determination based on reasons. The NGT as an adjudicatory body failed to exercise the jurisdiction entrusted to it under NGT Act 2010 by merely deferring to the decision to recommend and grant an EC,” the bench said.

Studies to identify sites for a new airport in Goa was commissioned 22 years ago as existing Dabolim airport was saturated in terms of its capacity to handle air traffic. Final feasibility report for new airport at Mopa was prepared by International Civil Aviation Organisation, Montreal (Canada), in August 2005. Chief minister-led six member committee gave clearance and process for land acquisition commenced in 2008. In 2012, the area of the project was reduced from 4,500 acres to 2,271 acres. In May 2015 Goa submitted EIA report. In October 2015, EC was granted to the project, which was challenged by NGO “Federation of Rainbow Warriors”. A total of nearly 55,000 trees have been cut.