NGT to hear plea challenging fine on Akshardham on Oct 5

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) will hear a plea, challenging its order in which it had quashed two office memoranda of the Environment and Forests Ministry and imposed a fine on Akshardham Temple for carrying out expansion without prior environmental clearance, on October 5.

The NGT had on July 7 quashed two office memoranda of the Environment Ministry on the issue of clearances for projects, saying they suffered from infirmity of “lack of inherent jurisdiction and authority”. The Akshardham Temple management, in its plea has said when the construction of the temple was completed in 2005, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2006 was not in force and thus there was no requirement to obtain environmental clearance. MPost