The Centre informed the Madras High Court on Wednesday that the Tamil translation of the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification was ready and should be made available to the public soon.
Madras High Court
Chennai:
The submission was made before a division bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) R Sankaranarayanan.
While seeking time to make a written submission in this regard, the ASG also pointed out that the Centre has already moved the Supreme Court challenging the stay granted by High Courts of certain States on the release of the draft EIA and is poised to be taken up for hearing soon.
However, the bench, on referring to Tamil translation of draft EIA doing its round on WhatsApp, directed the ASG to find whether it’s an official translation and posted the plea to August 19 for further hearing. Meenava Thanthai, an organisation working for the cause of the fishermen community had submitted that in its public interest litigation that the draft has been released only in English and Hindi and people especially in rural areas and coastal areas for whom the notification matters would be unable to read it and raise objections.
The plea also submitted that most of the people confined in the rural and forest areas are still ignorant about the present EIA notification owing to lack of publicity by the Centre in this regard. It said majority of people confined to rural areas are unable to comprehend such notifications in English or Hindi.