Anna snipes at Prithviraj Chavan for backing Lavasa

Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare has slammed Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s statement urging the central government to give necessary environmental clearance to the first phase of the controversial hill station project Lavasa.

In a letter jointly signed by National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) member Medha Patkar, Hazare claimed that such a move by the CM when the Bombay high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on the project was unwarranted.

Early last week, the CM had had a meeting with the Minister for Environment and Forests, Jayanthi Natarajan, and urged her to clear the first phase of the project.

“The chief minister’s proposal amounts to influencing the course of justice,” Hazare said.

Referring to a meeting he and Patkar had with the CM last year, prior to the winter session of the state assembly, the noted Gandhian said: “During our meeting, we had pointed out the various irregularities that the project was saddled with.”

Also the Hazare-Patkar letter claimed that the office memorandum issued by Mantralaya in November last year trying to regularise the project was illegal. In the letter, Hazare argued that the memorandum was signed by a director and could not supersede the gazettes issued by the central government about environmental clearance.

Making a strong case against the de facto environmental clearance to the project, the letter claimed that it was illegal and violative of the stringent norms of the environmental protection Act.