HC junks move to allow projects sans green nod

THE Madras High Court has quashed the Office Memorandums (OMS) issued by the union environment ministry in 2021 allowing post-facto environmental clearance (EC) for projects.

- SV KRISHNA CHAITANYA

The judgment pronounced by a bench of Justices M Sundar and K Govindarajan Thilakavadi would mean that several projects that were started without obtaining the mandatory environmental clearance under Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011, cannot be operationalised.

"It is not a case of one or two instruments but of a slew of instruments making ex post facto the norm and prior clearance an exception, while Supreme Court has repeatedly held that ex post facto clearance can only be an exception.

It (OMS) cannot be used for nullifying the EIA Notification which makes prior consent imperative," the HC said. The judges likened the OMS to taking blood samples or doing tests on a patient after commencing the drug course for a disease.