New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reconstituted an expert committee formed by the National Green Tribunal to oversee the compensatory afforestation and other mitigation measures for the Delhi-Dehradun expressway by including some additional members and replacing its chairperson.
The new six-lane highway will reduce the travel time from 6.5 hours to just 2.5 hours as per the plan of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and would have a 12-kilometer
elevated road to protect the wildlife and forests.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Aniruddha Bose directed that the chairperson of the expert committee will be CP Goyal, Director-General of Forests in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
The NGT had directed the chief secretary of the Uttarakhand government to head the expert panel.
The bench said that the replacement of the chairperson should not be seen as an expression of lack of confidence on the part of the Uttarakhand chief secretary and was only recasting the committee to ensure a broad understanding is facilitated in the implementation of the work.
The top court also included Anil Prakash Joshi, founder of Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO), and environmentalist Vijay Dhasmana as additional members of the oversight committee.
The top court's order came on an appeal filed by an NGO Citizens for Green Doon' which has challenged the NGT order clearing the
way for construction of the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway after constituting an expert panel.
The NGO has claimed that there are no independent persons involved in the expert panel and comprised of officials of Central and State governments and alleged that there was also an issue of conflict of interest on the part of the Wildlife Board of India.
At the outset, advocate Ritwik Dutta, appearing for the NGO, suggested the name of independent members of the committee as was sought by the top court.