NGT orders NHAI to conduct environmental impact assessment to minimise loss of Chevella Banyans
The Hindu
NGT orders NHAI to conduct EIA study to minimise tree loss for NH 163 expansion between Hyderabad and Bijapur. MoEF to issue terms of reference and complete process in 4 months.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to take up an environmental impact assessment study to minimise the loss of trees due to expansion of the National Highway 163 between Hyderabad and Bijapur.
Delivering its order on a petition filed by members of the environment collective ‘Save Banyans of Chevella’ against removal of the very old banyan trees for the road expansion, the NGT has given four months to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change for issue of terms of reference and completion of the process.
Over 1,000 trees on the 46-km stretch between Moinabad and Manneguda were scheduled to be axed to pave way for the four-laning of the road, before citizen activists opposed it in 2019.
In its judgment, the bench, comprising Justice Pushpa Satyanarayana and Satyagopal Korlapati, opined that it may not be possible to transplant 780 banyan trees, which is expensive. Moreover, transplantation is possible only for those trees the girth of which is not more than 65 centimetres. If the trees are uprooted and transplanted and they do not survive, the cost incurred would be a waste, it said.
“We are judges and therefore, cannot act like Mughals of a bygone era ... the writ courts in the guise of doing justice cannot transcend the barriers of law,” the High Court of Karnataka observed while setting aside an order of a single judge, who in 2016 had extended the lease of a public premises allotted to a physically challenged person to 20 years contrary to 12-year period stipulated in the law.
The High Court of Karnataka on Monday declined to interfere, at present, in the investigation against a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, who is among the accused persons facing charges of circulating obscene clips, related to “morphed” images and videos clips related to Prajwal Revanna, former Hassan MP, in public domain through pen drives and other modes.