Amitha Muraleedharan
The division bench comprising Chief Justice N Kotiswar Singh and Justice Manish Chowdhury of the Gauhati High Court had vacated the permission granted by the Centre to the government-possessed Oil India Ltd (OIL) to dig seven wells inside a national park in the eastern Assam.
The bench stayed the central government’s environmental clearance on hearing a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) petition by Advocate Mrinmoy Khataniar and mountaineer Amar Jyoti Deka.
Earlier, the PIL was filed against the government’s permission to OIL for drilling wells in the bio-diversity hotspot by changing rules like public hearing under the draft of Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2020.
The petition argued that if the OIL is permitted to drilling, then similar situations like Baghjan’s gas well leakage could be foreseen.
On May 11, the High Court had stayed the Centre’s environmental clearance for not complying with the 2017 Supreme Court order, which directed the OIL to organise a biodiversity impact assessment study.
Under Article 226 of the Indian constitution, the High court moved forward and was satisfied that the OIL had failed to carry out the direction prescribed in the supreme court order.
It had issued a fine of Rs 10,000 against the Assam forest department for failure to submit an affidavit about the violation of the Supreme Court order.
But the company stated they will use contemporary technology and will not affect the environment and Dibru-Saikhowa National Park as well.