HC notice to Environment Ministry on Contempt Plea over Publishing of translated EIA notification

On Tuesday, the High Court of Delhi issued notice to the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change on a petition seeking contempt proceedings against it for the alleged "wilful disobedience" of a Court order to publish the translated versions of the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification in all 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule.

A single-Judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva asked the ministry to file a reply & listed the matter for further hearing on Aug 17.

The contempt plea, filed by environmentalist Vikrant Tongad through his lawyer Vanshdeep Dalmia, claimed that the ministry neither published the translated versions of the draft EIA nor sought more time from the Court on this regard.

The plea stated, "Initiate proceedings of contempt against the respondent & pass appropriate directions & orders punishing & penalising the respondents jointly and/or severally for wilful disobedience & deliberate defiance of the order dated June 30, 2020, passed by this Court".

The HC had earlier extended the time granted to the general public to give their suggestions for the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 till Aug 11.

The Court had observed that there was ambiguity in the notification dated May 8 which extended the time limit to give the common public its suggestion for draft notification & also opined that the proposed notification should be translated into other languages too for effective dissemination.

It had noted that such translation may be undertaken by the Indian Govt itself, or with the assistance of the respective state Govts, where applicable.

On June 30, the Court directed that translations should also be published through the website of the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Govt of India as well as on websites of Environment Ministries of all the States as well as those of State Pollution Control Boards, within ten days from the day of the order. 

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