Cos Pay Experts For Favorable Green Impact Report: SC

By Krishnadas Rajagopal

New Delhi, Mar 5 : The system of granting environmental clearances to industrial and other projects came under sharp criticism on Friday from the Supreme Court which observed that the Environment Ministry had been letting private companies pay “a packet” to their favourite experts to assess the environmental impacts of their projects and obtain approvals on their basis. The court said the system was akin to “paying the piper to call the tune”.

A Special Bench led by Chief Justice S H Kapadia — while hearing a petition challenging the approval granted to French company Lafarge to mine limestone in Meghalaya — asked the Environment Ministry whether it had ever wondered as to how a consultant hired by a company would give an adverse impact assessment report after getting “its packet of money”.

In most of the cases as of now, Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) are prepared by consultants hired by the companies themselves. The EIAs so prepared are presented before expert committees of Environment Ministry which decides on granting approvals to a project.

The assessment envisages a comprehensive inspection of how a particular project would affect the bio-diversity, flora and fauna, ambient air and water quality, catchment area treatment, sub-soil water of the area in which a project is proposed and other relevant issues.

Justice Aftab Alam, who accompanies Kapadia and Justice K S Radhakrishnan on the Bench, noticed that every report placed before it was done by agencies which were employed by Lafarge.

Noting that he was not just on the point of Lafarge but talking in general terms, Justice Alam asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati whether any “project proponent (company) would pay a packet of money to get an adverse report”.

“But this is how the EIA has gone on since 1994 (when the first EIA Notification was issued),” Vahanvati replied.

“This procedure must cost project proponents a packet. In this case, all the reports are by the agencies assigned by the project proponent... who is paying the piper and calling the tune,” Justice Alam said.

To this, the AG said he had already advised “(Environment Minister) Mr Jairam Ramesh to have an independent mechanism”, and as of now the ministry had drawn a list of accredited agencies who could conduct EIAs. He said the government had “various layers of control”.

Clarifying that the Court was not saying that any of the reports were “perverse”, Chief Justice Kapadia joined Justice Alam to point out that the court was only interested in ensuring that “better procedures can be placed”.

At this point senior advocate Fali Nariman, appearing for Lafarge, said a separate department or infrastructure by the government for just conducting EIAs would involve “enormous costs”.

“Huge sums are spent by you to employ these agencies... now you can use the money to employ the government infrastructure,” Justice Alam said.

To a suggestion from the court that the government can ideally appoint a sub-divisional environmental officer for EIAs, Nariman said he was skeptic about the plan.