High Court stay or not, Karnataka environment authority clears projects anyway
Court
environmental clearances
Smitha Harshal Salve
The Karnataka State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (KSEIAA) is once again under scrutiny. A Division Bench comprising Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice G Basavaraja passed an interim order on January 17 while hearing a writ petition filed by Dodda Aswathanarayana Swamy. On April 9, 2025, the Highextended the interim order until the next date of hearing and directed that the matter be listed during the third week of June.Despite this, the KSEIAA has continued to hold meetings and issuefor various projects across the state, seemingly disregarding the court's directive.Balakrishna Shetty, an environmental activist from Mangaluru, has sought clarification under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) regarding the implementation of the High Court's stay order in Writ Petition No. 15267 of 2024.In his application, Shetty stated, 'In Writ Petition No. 15267 of 2024, the High Court ordered that the matter under the impugned notification shall not be precipitated until the next hearing. Despite this stay, SEIAA Karnataka and SEAC Karnataka have continued to conduct meetings and issue environmental clearances. Kindly provide copies of directions or correspondence between the Ministry and SEIAA Karnataka or the Department of Ecology and Environment regarding the stay order issued on January 17, 2025.'In response, Dr Saurabh Upadhyay, Chief Public Information Officer and Scientist D, asked Shetty to remit Rs 1,694 for copies of the relevant documents, calculated at Rs 2 per page. The documents released confirm that the Union Ministry had indeed sought legal opinion from Senior Consultant (Legal),, regarding the High Court's interim stay.Salve's opinion clearly interprets the order as a stay on the execution and operation of the Ministry's notification dated March 8, 2024 (OM SO 1188(E)). 'Considering the prayer in the petition... it can be very well interpreted that the Hon'ble High Court intends not to precipitate the operation of this notification,' she wrote. 'Hence, in view of the above... the Hon'ble High Court has stayed the operation of OM dated March 8, 2024. However, given the petitioner's repeated representations, it would be prudent to seek clarification from the Court to avoid any potential contempt.'Bangalore Mirror reported on the controversy in a February 11, 2025 article titled HC stays environment panel's appointments. Earlier, on January 3, 2025, it had also published Environment oversight: Unqualified appointments, highlighting how successive BJP and Congress governments were accused of appointing unqualified members to environmental panels, raising serious concerns over the integrity of environmental assessments in Karnataka.
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