Plea in HC for EIA reports in vernacular language

The petitioner Jesu Rethinam of Nagapattinam and convener of Coastal Asian Network, submitted that the plea has been filed seeking to enforce the rights of persons to participate in environmental decision making, which includes the right to make an informed decision about the projects and activities coming up in their vicinity, which will impact their environment, life and livelihood.

Noting that the EIA and CRZ notifications mandates the obtainment of prior clearance for projects having a large environmental footprint after studying the proposed activity, the plea said, “The right to public participation has also been recognized in these instruments since such participation cannot be meaningful and effective unless the people who are faced with the immediate impacts of the activity are informed and they understand the Environment Impact Assessment reports prepared.”

Further, the plea on citing the Rio Declaration, 1992, the Aarhus Convention, 1998, said the EIA notification, 2006, in clause 7 (iii) also mandates public consultation and that public hearing proceedings must be read out to the audience in the vernacular language and only the agreed minutes shall be signed by the district magistrate and forwarded to the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF).

But merely having the clearance and documents based on which the project is being appraised and uploaded on the website of the ministry will not serve any purpose since the documents ultimately are not in a form that is understandable by the people, the plea said and pointed out that MoEF ought to have seen that the EIA notification has an exhaustive requirement concerning public participation and the same cannot be rendered illusory by not providing the data and the clearance in the language that the people can understand.

“Most often, these documents are not even made available in the websites of the respective State-level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) and the MoEF, resulting in farmers and fishermen communities who bear the brunt of most of the activities are kept in the dark since they are not in a position to read and understand the documents based on which they are legally empowered to participate in the process,” the plea said.

Based on the submissions, a division bench comprising Justice M Sathaynarayanan and Justice P Rajamanickam ordered notice to the Centre represented by its Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests.