The Supreme Court has clarified that project developers are not legally bound to publish the full Environmental Clearance (EC) document in local newspapers. In a ruling by a Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar, the Court stated that it suffices for the project proponents to announce that they have received EC and to summarise the key conditions and safeguards attached to that clearance.
The issue came before the Court in an appeal filed by a gram panchayat challenging the EC granted to a large limestone mining project. The panchayat argued that, according to the EIA Notification of 2006, the entire EC should have been made public in a newspaper under Clause 10. They maintained that non-publication of the full document violated transparency obligations and raised questions about how and when the local community could learn about the precise terms of the clearance.
Rejecting this argument, the Supreme Court endorsed an earlier ruling by the National Green Tribunal. The Court pointed out that while the EIA Notification does require developers to publicise the grant of EC, it does not legally require publication of the entire clearance document in newspapers. Instead, an announcement that EC has been granted—along with a summary of its material conditions—is adequate to meet legal requirements.
Furthermore, on the issue of limitation, the Court held that the limitation period to challenge an EC under environmental law should begin from the date on which the EC is made publicly accessible in any form—whether it’s through the Ministry’s website, a newspaper announcement, or communication by an authorised official. The Court stressed that once the EC is publicly communicated in any of these ways, the clock for filing a challenge starts running.
This ruling underlines the Court’s practical approach to balancing statutory disclosure requirements with administrative efficiency. It aims to ensure that awareness about environmental clearances reaches the public, without unnecessarily burdening the notification process with overly technical or procedural demands. By doing so, the Court has affirmed that transparency in environmental regulation can be achieved without imposing rigid and potentially impractical publication obligations.
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