The Supreme Court on Friday said it would revisit its earlier order and make it mandatory for real state developers to get environmental clearance before starting housing projects. This could come in the way of hundreds of projects which have commenced without obtaining the ‘green’ nod from the Centre.
The builders were banking on Office Memorandums (OMs) issued by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on December 12, 2012 and subsequently on June 27, 2013, giving them relief. By this decision, the Centre provided realtors an opportunity to correct existing violations such as lack of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and CRZ clearances by merely declaring their violations. It was left to the Centre’s discretion to grant post-facto clearance.
These OMs were challenged before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the grounds that the concession was in essence an “alteration” to the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 and the EIA notification of 2006. The NGT Full Bench on July 7, 2015 stayed the OMs on a petition filed against builders from Chennai who were in the process of constructing multi-storey housing projects without EIA clearance.
One of the builders affected by the NGT order approached the apex court and said that the State Government was in the process of considering their request for EIA clearance under the December 12, 2012 MoEF notification. Senior advocate Rajeev Dutta pointed out that a batch of petitions filed by other builders was pending before the apex court which had stayed the NGT order. It was this order that the SC said it would revisit.
Taking a serious view of the state of affairs after the NGT order was stayed, the Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice R Banumathi said, “You are merrily going on completing construction under the cover of a stay order… It is a double-edged weapon. On one side, you misrepresent people (buyers) to buy homes without legal sanctity, on the other hand, you do big damage to the environment.”
Dutta, who represented Satilila Sahkari Awas Samiti limited, told the court that it deserved equal treatment as the other builders as their project was huge and was at the brink of getting EIA approval. The Bench said, “We will summon all case files on Friday and hear you along with all parties. After hearing the other side (the Centre along with applicant before NGT) if we are convinced, we will issue notice or else vacate our stay order.” The Bench failed to understand how a multi-storey flats project had developed 100 per cent without prior environment clearance as mandated by law.
Any building and construction project which has a built up area or covered area of more than 20,000 square metres or less than 1,50,000 sq metres would fall under Township and Area Development projects covering an area of more than 50 hectares which requires environmental clearance. Built up areas of more than 1,50,000 sq metres also require EIA clearance, which is to be obtained before the project commences.
The NGT, while quashing the two OMs, had slapped huge environment compensation on realtors for not obtaining EIA clearance. Coughing up five per cent of the project cost, some developers had to furnish up to `32 crore to the Centre to compensate for the violations. The real estate developers argued that due to the OM, they had decided to obtain EIA after obtaining completion certificate.