HYDERABAD: In a shot in the arm for the Telangana government, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a petition seeking the implementation of an National Green Tribunal (NGT) order on the expansion of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS).
The Apex Court, instead, suggested to the petitioners that they approach the tribunal for its implementation. “The Apex Court is not an executing court of any tribunal order,” it said.Senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for petitioners T Srinivas and two others from Siddipet district, sought permission to withdraw the petition with liberty to take appropriate remedies in accordance with law.
To this, an SC bench, comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, allowed the plea and dismissed the petition as withdrawn with the liberty aforesaid.
The petitioners submitted that the NGT, in its final order on October 20, 2020, had declared that the estimated `80,000-crore KLIS was constructed without environment clearance.
The green court had also directed the Telangana government not to undertake `21,000 crore worth of project expansion work to increase the pumping capacity from two tmcft a day to three tmcft a day, without conducting appraisal by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and without obtaining approval from the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS).
The petitioners also contended that the State government has been going ahead with the project expansion without appraisal and ignoring the repeated directions of the MoJS.