Directions of Minority Judgment

Bharucha, J.

Pages: 30-32

I should not be deemed to have agreed to anything stated in Brother Kirpal’s judgment for the reason that have not traversed it in the course of what have stated.

In the premises,

The Environment Impact Agency of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Union of India shall forthwith appoint a Committee of Experts in the fields mentioned in Schedule III of the notification dated 27th January, 1994, called the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 1994.

The Committee of Experts shall gather all necessary data on the environmental impact of the Project. They shall be free to commission or carry out such surveys and studies and the like as they deem necessary. They shall also consider such surveys and studies as have already been carried out.

Upon such data, the Committee of Experts shall assess the environmental impact of the Project and decide if environmental clearance to the Project can be given and, if it can, what environmental safeguard measures must be adopted, and their cost. In so doing, the Committee of Experts shall take into consideration the fact that the construction of the dam and other work on the Project has already commenced.

Until environmental clearance to the Project is accorded by the Committee of Experts as aforesaid, further construction work on the dam shall cease.

The Grievance Redressal Authorities of the States of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra shall ensure that those ousted by reason of the Project are given relief and rehabilitation in due measure.

When the Project obtains environmental clearance, assuming that it does, each of the Grievance Redressal Authorities of the States of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra shall, after such inspection, certify, before work on the further construction of the dam can begin, that all those ousted by reason of the increase in the height of the dam by 5 meters from its present level have already been satisfactorily rehabilitated and also that suitable vacant land for rehabilitating all those who will be ousted by the increase in the height of the dam by another 5 meters is already in the possession of the respective States.

This process shall be repeated for every successive proposed 5 meter increase in the dam height.

If for any reason the work on the Project, now or at any time in the future, cannot proceed and the Project is not completed, all oustees who have been rehabilitated shall have the option to continue to reside where they have been rehabilitated or to return to where they were ousted from, provided such place remains habitable, and they shall not be made at all liable in monetary or other terms on this account.

The writ petition is allowed in the aforementioned terms. The connected matters are disposed of in the same terms.

No order as to costs.

(S.P.Bharucha)
New Delhi,
October 18, 2000