Supreme Court: In a writ petition and interlocutory applications filed seeking clarification of the judgment dated 03.06.2022 passed by the Court, wherein it was ordered that, there should be no development within 1 Km of the eco-sensitive zone (‘ESZ’) around the national park, sanctuary or protected area, that was later modified, allowing ongoing projects to continue, the full bench of B.R. Gavai, Surya Kant, J.B. Pardiwala, JJ. has upheld the eco-sensitive zone notifications for Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Thane Flamingo Creek Sanctuary.
The applicant submitted that the eco-sensitive zone (ESZs) around Sanjay Gandhi National Park has already been notified vide final notification dated 05.12.2016 and the eco-sensitive zone around Thane Flamingo Creek Sanctuary has already been notified vide final notification dated 14.10.2021. Thus, the judgment dated 03.06.2022 which directs that each protected forest, that is a national park or wildlife sanctuary must have an eco-sensitive zone of minimum one kilometre wide, would not be applicable to them.
The Court viewed that a draft notification dated 08.04.2021 concerning Thane Flamingo Creek Sanctuary that was already published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and after a final decision was taken in respect of the said draft notification, the matter be placed before the Court, however, the final notification dated 14.10.2021 was already issued before the order dated 03.06.2022 and the same was not brought to the notice of the Court.
Previously, the Court had noted that one kilometre wide “no development zone” may not be feasible in all cases, thus, specific instances regarding Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Guindy National Park have also been made in paragraph 42 of the judgment.
Thus, the Court observed that the notification dated 05.12.2016 in respect of Sanjay Gandhi National Park as well as the notification dated 14.10.2021 in respect of Thane Flamingo Creek Sanctuary has been issued after following the entire procedure as prescribed under the law.
[In re TN Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 1318, decided on 23-09-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Senior Advocate Harish N. Salve, Senior Advocate A.D.N. Rao, Senior Advocate Aparajita Singh, Advocate Siddhartha Chowdhury, Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh, Advocate Suhasini Sen, Advocate Naman Tandon, Advocate Piyush Beriwal, Advocate Samarvir Singh, Advocate Navanjay Mahapatra, Advocate Archana Pathak Dave, Advocate D.L. Chidananda, Advocate S.S. Rebello, Advocate Shyam Gopal, Advocate Sughosh Subramanyam, Advocate-On-Record Amrish Kumar, Advocate-On-Record G.S. Makker, Additional Solicitor General K. Advocate M. Nataraj , Advocate Mukesh Kumar Verma, Advocate Neeraj Kumar Sharma, Advocate Ms.Mrinal Elker Mazumdar, Advocate Indira Bhakar,Priyanka Sharma, Advocate Prahil Sharma, Advocate.Harender Singh, Advocate Ambuj Saraswat, Advocate Prabhat Pachauri, Advocate Harsh Singhal , Advocate Amit Bansal, Advocate Nakul Chengappa K.K., Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Advocate Chirag Shah, Advocate Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Advocate Rahul Chitnis, Advocate Utsav Trivedi, Advocate Himanshu Sachdeva, Advocate Manini Roy, Advocate-On-Record Aaditya A. Pande, Advocate Bharat Bagla, Advocate General Ashok Sharma, Additional Advocate General Abhinav Mukerji, Advocate Bihu Sharma, Advocate Pratishtha Vij, Advocate Akshay C. Shrivastava, Advocate Ravindra Lokhande, Advocate-On-Record Abhishek Atrey, Advocate-On-Record Abhinav Mukerji, Advocate-On-Record Ajit Pudussery, Advocate Gunjan Sinha Jain, Advocate-On-Record Chanchal Kumar Ganguli , Advocate-On-Record Gaurav Kumar Bansal, Advocate-On-Record Manan Verma, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, Additional Solicitor General Atmaram N.S. Nadkarni, Advocate Rukhmini Bobde, Advocate Ankit A, Advocate Kunal Vajani, Advocate Samit Shukla, Advocate Akhil Anand, Advocate Saloni Shah, Advocate Shivani Khanwilkar, Advocate-On-Record M/s Dsk Legal, Advocate Adiraj Bali, Advocate Deepti Arya, Advocate Shubhang Tandon, Advocate Saket Mone, Advocate Devansh Shah, Advocate Priyashree Sharma PH, Advocate Syed Faraz Alam, Advocate-On-Record Kush Chaturvedi, Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta, Advocate-On-Record Nishe Rajen Shonker, Advocate Anu K. Joy, Advocate Alim Anvar, Advocate Saket Singh, Advocate Sangeeta Singh, AdvocatNiranjana Singh, Advocate-On-Record Abhinav Mukerji, Advocate K. Raghavacharyulu, Advocate Kailash Pandey, Advocate Ranjeet Singh, Advocate-On-Record Gaichangpou Gangmei, Advocate-On-Record Mahfooz A. Nazki, Advocate Polanki Gowtham, Advocate Shaik Mohamad Haneef, Advocate T. Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, Advocate Rajeswari Mukherjee, Advocate K.V.Girish Chowdary, Advocate Archana Pathak Dave, Advocate-On-Record Deepanwita Priyanka, Advocate-On-Record Chirag M. Shroff, Advocate-On-Record V.N. Raghupathy, Advocate-On-Record P.V. Yogeswaran, Advocate Ashish Kumar Upadhyay, Advocate Y. Lokesh, Advocate V. Sibi Kargil, Advocat V. Kandha Prabhu, Advocate Arun Singh, Advocate Anubhav Chaturvedi, Advocate Pankaj Kumar Agarwal, Advocate Surya Narayan Patro, Advocate L.R. Venkatesan, Advocate K. Kumaravadivel, Advocate Shivani Tushir, Advocate Maitri Goel, Senior Advocate general Vinod Ghai, Advocate Kanika Ahuja, Advocate-On-Record Ajay Pal, Advocate-On-Record Mayank Dahiya, Advocate-M. Priyanka C., Advocate-On-Record Vanshaja Shukla, Advocate Rachna Gandhi, Advocate Sajal Singhai, Advocate Ajay Bansal, Advocate Gaurav Yadava, Advocate Beena Bansal, Advocate Saurav Jindal, Advocate R Yadav, Advocate P. Venkat Reddy, Advocate Prashant Kr. Tyagi, Advocate P. Srinivas Reddy, Advocate-On-Record M/s. Venkat Palwai Law Associates, Advocate-On-Record Monika Gusain, Advocate Hari Om Yaduvanshi, Advocate S. Harini, Advocate-On-Record Syed Mehdi Imam, Advocate Tabrez Ahmad, Advocate Md. Parvez Dabas, Advocate Mushtaque Ahmad, Advocate Uzmi Jamil Hussain, Advocate Preeti Goel, Advocate Rajeev Kumar Dubey, Advocate-On-Record Kamlendra Mishra, Advocate Prakash Gautam, Advocate-On-Record Sunny Choudhary Advocate-On-Record Aravindh S, Advocate Abbas B., Advocate Shiv Singh Yadav, Advocate Ish Karan Singh Chhabra, Advocate-On-Record Mohd. Irshad Hanif, Advocate Aarif Ali, Advocate Rizwan Ahmad, Advocate Mujahid Ahmad, Advocate Shishir Raj, Advocate Ahmad Parvej, Advocate Mohd. Aslam, Advocate Mohit Kumar, Advocate Saba Baby Khan, Advocate Waseem Akhatar Khan, Advocate Amar Kumar Raizada, Advocate-On-Record Avijit Mani Tripathi, AdvocateT.K. Nayak, Advocate Marbiang Khongwir, Advocate Shaurya Sahay
