Vedanta

New Delhi, Aug 1: Supreme Court today asked the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to explain its recent decision to revoke environmental clearance granted to Sterlite — the London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta’s Indian arm — to mine Niyamgiri hills, in Orissa’s tribal-dominated Kalahandi district, for bauxite.

The apex court had earlier asked the MoEF to explain why it revoked the forest clearance to the project. Even that explanation is yet to come from the ministry. The delay was attributed by MoEF counsel Harris Beeran to the “change of guard” at the ministry. He sought more time from the court to respond to the court notice issued on April 21, 2011.

The top court granted him two more weeks to file his explanation in court and issued notices to the ministry on yet another application filed by the Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC), 26 per cent joint venture partner with Sterlite, challenging the recent decision on environmental clearance to the project.

Back in 2008, Supreme Court had refused to clear the project to Vedanta and had given it instead to Sterlite so that it could monitor implementation of several conditions that it was imposing on the company to let the project through.

The forestland diversion for the project predated this. It was granted to the company in 2005. The environmental clearance to the project came in 2009.

But local residents, led by political leaders, filed an objection with the MoEF in 2009, prompting the ministry led by Jairam Ramesh to revoke the forest clearance on August 24, 2010. The MoEF informed the state that revoking the forest clearance meant that the environmental clearance was inoperable.

But on July 11, 2011, a day before Jairam Ramesh lost the environment portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle, the ministry also revoked the environmental clearance to the project. The ministry reasoned that environmental clearance to the project was subject to various conditions, which included obtaining requisite forestry clearance.

“Since Stage II forest clearance for the forestland involved in the project has already been rejected, the environmental clearance granted automatically becomes infructuous and inoperable,” the order said, withdrawing the environmental clearance.

The OMC has challenged this latest order. It has urged the court to stay the order revoking environmental clearance and also set it aside. A bench, comprising Justices R.V. Raveendran and Gyansudha Misra, after hearing short arguments on the matter adjourned it till after two weeks, to enable the MoEF to respond to the court notices.