The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday criticised the union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) for dragging its feet on taking final call on fate of environmentalist Madhav Gadgil's report on Western Ghats.
Gadgil in his report had recommended notification of nearly 3/4th of Western Ghats area into ecologically sensitive zone restricting development activities or projects like dams.
However, under severe opposition from governments of states where Western Ghats fall, MoEF had formed a high level working group (HLWG) report headed by Prof K Kasturirangan which in a subsequent report recommended 37 percent of area be declared as ecologically sensitive and also called for restricting commercial activities like mining, thermal power plants, polluting industries and even large housing plans.
Due to political reasons or to avoid face off with state governments, UPA government kept final call on Western Ghat pending and had only given an in-principle approval in October 2013 to implement the Kasturirangan committee report. But now NDA government has to take the final decision in the case.
The case has been pending in NGT for the past some time and it had asked MoEF to clarify its position on Madhav Gadgil report.
However, when MoEF failed to file a clear affidavit on Monday, it was pulled up severely for filing a vague affidavit and it was asked to give a final affidavit by August 27. NGT's bench headed by chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said that despite court's specific directions, MoEF has failed to file an appropriate affidavit.
Why can't it (MoEF) take a clear stand on whether it wants to keep the Gadgil report or not? If it can't then we will have to call the MoEF secretary in person to clear the matter," said an angry Justice Swatanter Kumar.
"Despite our specific directions, MoEF has failed to file an appropriate affidavit. A vague affidavit has been presented before the Tribunal today," the bench noted in its order.
But after MoEF's lawyer pleaded that issue needs to be taken up with the senior officials the bench asked for a fresh affidavit from environment ministry by August 27.
In the three-page affidavit termed "vague" by NGT, MoEF said that report by group headed by Prof K Kasturirangan is a subsequent report to the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report chaired by Gadgil that the Ministry is examining and further processing the HLWG report.
It was not for the first time that MoEF came under fire from NGT as it has been repeatedly pulled by NGT over absence of their representative in important cases at the tribunal. Environment ministry, which is the nodal ministry for NGT, is meanwhile reportedly trying to dilute powers of the green tribunal.
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