Jan Chetnavs Union Of India and others.

In this significant order, Delhi High Court directed the MoEF to ensure that the copy of the entire Environmental Clearance order is published in two local newspaper. As of this order the project has been accorded environmental clearance. No details are given about the clearance as a result of which affected people do not generally know the grounds for challenge. The Court observed: It transpires that the website of the MoEF uploads the orders granting environmental clearance long after they have been passed and invariably after the expiry period of 30 days which is the limitation for filing appeals. As a result, the persons who desire to file an appeal before the NEAA, and who are located outside Delhi, are unable to file them within time……. would be mandatory for MoEF to disclose on its website not only the information about the order granting environmental clearance in each case, but the entire order as well, not later than five days after the date of the order granting such clearance. This is because an aggrieved person, not being privy to the order granting environmental clearance, is unlikely to learn of the order within a reasonable time thereafter, except by looking for it on the website of the MoEF. We are constrained to observe that if the remedy by way of an appeal before the NEAA against an order granting environmental clearance has to be made meaningful, it would be the obligation of the MoEF to ensure that information of the passing of such order must be in the public domain at the earliest, and definitely within a period of five days of passing such order. Apart from uploading the full text of such order on its website, the MoEF will publish the said order in two local newspapers in the area in which the industry concerned (which has been granted permission) is located or is proposed to be located, one of which is in the local language.