Specify clearances needed for Mayawati’s Noida project: Court

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Friday asked the central government to categorically state the statutory clearances that were required to be complied with for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s ambitious Noida Park Project to go ahead.

The project costing Rs.700 crore was initiated after cutting 6,000 trees which were about 35 years old.

Reserving its verdict, a bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, however, took exception to a provision of the office memorandum filed by the central government Friday which says that if a project falls within 10 km of a wild life sanctuary, then its promoters will have to take clearance from the National Board for Wildlife.

The court asked the central government to file an affidavit stating whether this provision of the office memorandum was applicable in the case of Noida park or not.

Chief Justice Kapadia made it clear that either the court would give an in principle approval (to the project) or if it were to give a final go ahead, then the court should know what all statutory requirements were needed to be complied with.

If those requirements have not been complied with so far, then the court would give its approval subject to the satisfaction of those requirements, he said.

If subsequently those conditionalities were not complied with, then the central government could move the court for the recall or revocation of the order, he said, adding it was for this reason that the court from the very beginning made it clear that all required clearances should be put in place before it would pass its final order.

Justice Alam said: “First you (the central government) decide, then we will decide. It cant happen otherwise that first we decide, then you decide”.