CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Centre on the plea moved by a fishermen association seeking to translate the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification into the vernacular language and provide sufficient time to make objections.
The counsel for the petitioner also pointed out that the Karnataka High Court had restrained the Centre from publishing the final version of the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification.
Recording the submissions, the two-member bench of justices MM Sundresh and R Hemalatha adjourned the plea to Friday for a detailed hearing.
According to the petitioner, most of the people confined to rural villages and forest fringe villagers are still ignorant about the present EIA Notification 2020 since there was no substantial publicity by the central government in any publication.
"The central government ought to have seen that the general public are unable to make their suggestions and objections with respect to the draft EIA Notification 2020 in so far as the country and the people have vigorously fought against COVID-19 till now," said the petitioner.
The state has a population of 8.5 crore of which only a section of people understand Hindi and English. The majority of people confined to rural areas of Tamil Nadu especially the villagers would not understand either English or Hindi which makes it difficult to understand the draft order, the petitioner contended.