The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday asked for a response from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to a plea to give wide publicity to elicit public view on the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2020, dated March 23, 2020, which proposes changes to the existing EIA processes.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice M. Nagaprasanna issued the direction on a PIL petition filed by the United Conservation Movement Charitable and Welfare Trust, Bengaluru.
The petitioner had said that such notifications having national impact were published in vernacular languages on newspapers earlier to keep people informed, but this time no such publication was done except for an upload on the website apart from publishing it in the gazette.
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It was also pointed out by the petitioner that the Environment Protection Act empowers the Union government to publish the notification in other manner as may deemed necessary from time to time.