Chenna

SC to hear NHAI plea in September

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear in September first week a plea by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to vacate an order of the Madras High Court to get prior environmental clearance for the ₹10,000 crore Salem-Chennai eight-lane green corridor road project.

The NHAI has maintained that the project was of “national importance” and does not require environmental clearance prior to land acquisition.

In the previous hearing before a Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said “there is a separate procedure” in place for NHAI projects. This is different from the normal acquisition process.

Mr. Mehta had compared getting environmental clearance before acquisition to “putting the cart before the horse”.

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