by Vijaylakshmi
Days after faulting Uttarakhand for failing to take preventive steps to curb forest fires, Supreme Court has stayed a big hotel project in Bhimtal-Mukteshwar region as a petition alleged that it would lead to large scale felling of trees in the verdant Jilling Estate area.
A bench of Justices A S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan admitted the appeal filed by Birendra Singh, who had challenged the go-ahead given by Uttarakhand high court.
The bench revived a stay on any kind of tree felling and construction activities at the site in Jilling Estate. It asked the project proponent to file its response to the petition within six weeks and posted the matter for further hearing on Aug 12.
For the petitioner, advocates P B Suresh and Vipin Nair argued that the HC erred by permitting construction activities at the site based on ‘single-window clearance’ despite the proponent not getting the mandatory prior environmental clearance under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006.
The counsel said if the thickly forested patch was permitted to be deforested for a hotel project, which intends to carry out construction activities on an area of 20,000 square feet, it would cause irreparable damage to the fragile ecology of the area.
The Justice Oka-led bench said on Friday, “In the meanwhile, the interim order dated Nov 23, 2022, passed by the high court will continue to operate till further orders.” The HC in its April 9 judgment had vacated the interim stay granted on Nov 23, 2022, and had allowed construction by ‘Devanya Hotel and Resort Pvt Ltd’.
The HC had said, “No part of land of the respondents falls in the forest area and, hence, they are bound to carry out construction as per the permission granted on Feb 17, 2022, and if the construction is carried out beyond 20,000 sq feet, the competent authority will have the jurisdiction to initiate appropriate steps in accordance with law against the private respondents.”
The petitioner argued, “Significantly, the EIA Notification of Sept 14, 2006, clearly states that prior environmental clearance is required ‘before any construction work’ starts as opposed to an ‘ex-post-facto’ approval.”
