CHENNAI/KOCHI: The Southern Regional Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Chennai on Wednesday cancelled the environmental clearance accorded to the controversial KGS airport project at Aranmula by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).
The verdict is seen as a major victory for local residents and activists who strongly opposed the project as it involves large-scale, allegedly illegal, conversion of 211 acres of paddy fields.
Justice M Chockalingam and expert member R Nagendran of the Tribunal struck down the clearance after they found the recommendations by the expert appraisal committee, on which the approval was based, faulty on two grounds. The Tribunal also accepted the petitioner’s plea that the Madurai-based agency Envirocare was not qualified to conduct the study. The public hearing held by the appraisal committee had not followed the norms set for the purpose, it noted.
The Tribunal restrained KGS International Airport Limited, a Chennai-based company that is executing the project, from carrying out any activity, constructional or otherwise, in respect of the proposed airport on the strength of Centre’s environmental clearance.
“The tribunal has clearly restrained any activity on the proposed site and has also upheld that there were lapses in conducting the public hearing,” said advocate R Krishna Raj, who appeared on behalf of Aranmula Heritage Village Action Council, one of the petitioners in the case.
Harish Vasudevan, who was part of the team representing one of the petitioners, told Express that the KGS had the option to move the Supreme Court to seek a judicial review of Tribunal’s verdict. “But they would have to start from the application process,” he said.
Separate petitions were filed against the project by Kummanam Rajasekharan of the Aranmula Heritage Protection Council, environmentalist K P Sreeranganathan, K K Royson, A Padmakumar of the CPM and P Prasad of the CPI.
K P Dandapani, Advocate-General of Kerala, who appeared for the state contended that the petitioners have no locus standi as they did not attend the public hearing conducted to gather opinion on the project.
