Even as loading of fuel began on Friday at the controversial Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, a fresh plea was filed in the Supreme Court claiming that the environmental clearance given to the plant in 1989 was not valid.
The plea, by social activist G. Sundarrajan through counsel Prashant Bhushan, has sought a stay on the August 31 verdict of the Madras high court which had upheld the validity of the environment clearance given to the project by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in 1989. The petition contended that the high court ignored the law that states that any expansion or modernisation of a project requires a fresh clearance and that a clearance stands valid only for five years.
The petition said the high court ignored the fact that enormous changes have taken place in environmental norms since 1989 and that a nuclear plant has enormous environmental impact and must be judged and be governed by the law of the land as it exists today.
This is the third petition filed in the top court against the commissioning of the Koodankulam nuclear power plant, which has triggered largescale protests at the site and debate across the country on the prospects and consequences of nuclear power.
The earlier petitions filed by NGOs Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Common Cause have sought a direction to the government to make it binding on the Russian firm involved in setting up of the nuclear reactors at the plant to pay damages in case of any accident.
It had been alleged that the Centre has exempted Russian firm from all liabilities in case of an accident, which is against the law. Sundarrajan had also approached the apex court against the high court’s decision, which had refused to impose any restraint on the plant.
“At the time of the clearance, there were no coastal regulation zone (CRZ) notification of 1991, no mandatory public hearing notification of 1994 and no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report,” the petition filed on Friday said. Further, enormous changes had been made in the original plan of 1988 by signing a fresh agreement with Russia in 1998 that had huge environmental implications, the petition said, adding that the environmental clearance given in 1989 reads like a formality with no proper application of mind.