A court here has deferred till Friday a decision on issuing a process order in the Lavasa case. This comes in the wake of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) producing new documents.
The MPCB, on behalf of the State government, had initiated criminal proceedings against nine directors and six officials of the Lavasa Corporation last week. It alleged that the company violated the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, in the project's first phase.
Chief Judicial Magistrate N.T. Ghadge rejected the company's plea that it be allowed to produce documents, which prove that it was the State government that gave clearance to the hill city. Instead, the court asked the Board to submit the same documents.
The documents, available with The Hindu , include a July 2005 letter by a former MPCB director to the Environment Ministry, stating that the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 1996, amended in 2004, was not applicable to the Lavasa project, as the project had started work before 2004.
