The tussle between Nirma Ltd and the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) took a new turn today, as the Gujarat high court refused to stay the notice issued by the latter on March 12 to halt construction work on the company’s cement project in Mahuva taluka of Bhavnagar district.
Nirma had approached the HC to quash the MoEF notice that had ordered “permanent suspension of work” with regard to the 1.91-million tonne per annum (mtpa) cement plant, along with its captive power and coke oven plant near Padhiarka village in Mahuva.
Area farmers have been opposing the project for quite a while. A rally of 5,000 protesting farmers reached here today, having travelled 350 km on foot since March 3 from Mahuva. They’re led by the area MLA, Kanubhai Kalsaria, who’s from the ruling party.
A farmers’ body linked to the ruling party has supported the agitation and so has the opposition Congress party.
A bench of the chief justice, S Mukhopadhyaya, and judge Anant S Dave heard the Nirma petition, but declined to stay the notice. They issued a notice to MoEF and scheduled further hearing on April 7. The court said the company was free to challenge the matter in the Supreme Court, but it did not feel a stay was necessary at this stage.
Incidentally, in New Delhi, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh, when asked by reporters, said he presumed the company would appeal to the SC as soon as it could.
MoEF had also directed Nirma to respond as to “Why the environmental clearance accorded to the project should not be revoked and stoppage of the work not be made permanent”. Nirma has filed an interim reply to the ministry’s notice.
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The company had written to the ministry that the direction under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, to stop implementation, including construction work, was “completely without jurisdiction or authority of law...and cannot bind us at this stage”.
Farmers from 12 villages in Bhavnagar under the banner of Shree Mahuva Bandhara Khetiwadi Pariyavaran Ran Bachav Samiti district had filed a suit against the project in the HC last year. They’d opposed the project on the ground that of the 268 hectares allotted to the company for the plant, 222 ha was part of a natural wetland.
Nirma was allotted 268 ha for the cement plant and 3,000 ha for mining leases in the surrounding areas across the coastline in Bhavnagar district. The HC had then allowed Nirma to go ahead with construction at site, rejecting the farmers’ suit.