New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday
decided to hear on April five the issue of feasibility of
carrying out the controversial Sethusamudram project through
Dhanuskodi instead of Rama Setu.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan
agreed to hear the matter after Janata Party Chief Subramanian
Swamy submitted that it was unlikely that the government would
come out soon with the report of the expert committee which
has an enormous task of collecting huge data.
He said some decision on the project has to be taken
as the verdict on it was reserved long back on July 30, 2008.
Swamy had moved an application seeking scrapping of
the project claiming National Institute of Oceanography (NIO),
which is the expert body of government, has doubted its
feasibility.
Government has failed to give a time-frame to place
before the Supreme Court the report of the expert committee
examining the feasibility of the project through Dhanuskodi
instead of Rama Setu.
The Centre had said the preliminary report of the NIO,
which according to the opponents of the project has doubted
its feasibility, cannot be taken as final and binding on the
expert committee headed by environmentalist R K Pachauri.
The affidavit, filed by the Ministry of Shipping, said
the expert committee in its November 10 meeting discussed the
inputs provided by the NIO and further nominated it for
conducting the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) in 18
months.
PTI
First Published: Friday, March 12, 2010, 00:12