The Karnataka high court today held that prior environmental clearance is not needed for stretching the national highway 4-A for 82 kilometres in the terms of state of Karnataka notification dated on 22 August, 2013.
According to the previous notification earlier prior permission has to be taken for emvironment clearance having a stretch of more than 100 kilometres.
The court has made the declaration by seeing there was no material found or anything which can prove that no work was going on in the NH-4A stretch in Goa. NH -4A passed from the state of Karnataka to state of Goa. as per the official documents filed by NHAI, wideing work has not been undertaken for a stretch of 84.121 km to 153.075 km.
The project is only at the iniatial stage and no financial allocation has been made till now. And it was also specifically stated that no widening projects are ongoing in goa.
The petition was filed by actor and environmentalist Suresh Heblikar.The bench while disposing the petition said that it is not necessary for the third respondent (NHAI) for obtaining prior environmental clearance.
And it is also mentioned in the notification issues by EIA dated 14 September, 2006.
Lawcutor 