IMPORTANT POINTS
The EAC is not lacking domain expertise.
There is no conflict of interest in respect of EIL.
Court must be circumspect in micro-managing the decision-making process by the by the expert body.

JUDGMENT

Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, J.

A. Introduction

1. The Union of India in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change [MoEF-CC] moved these proceedings, seeking a direction that the Minutes of the fortieth meeting of the Expert Appraisal Committee [EAC] dated 23 April 2019 be taken on the record so that the embargo imposed by this Court on the Environmental Clearance [EC] for a greenfield airport at Mopa Goa can be lifted. This follows upon the judgment dated 23 April 2019 which was rendered on a challenge addressed to this Court against a decision of the National Green Tribunal [NGT] upholding the EC, subject to compliance with certain conditions. By the judgment of this Court, reported as Hanuman Laxman Aroskar v Union of India, (2019) SCCOnline SC 441 : 2019 Supreme(SC) 374 the process leading up to the grant of an EC on 28 October 2015 was held to be flawed. The directions that were imposed by the Court were formulated in the following terms:

“175. …

(i) The EAC shall revisit the recommendations made by it for the grant of an EC, including the conditions which it has formulated, having regard to the specific concerns which have been highlighted in this judgment;

(ii) The EAC shall carry out the exercise under (i) above within a period of one month of the receipt of a certified copy of this order;

(iii) Until the EAC carries out the fresh exercise as directed above, the EC granted by the MoEFCC on 28 October 2015 shall remain suspended;

(iv) Upon reconsidering the matter in terms of the present directions, the EAC, if it allows the construction to proceed will impose such additional conditions which in its expert view will adequately protect the concerns about the terrestrial eco systems noticed in this judgment. The EAC would be at liberty to lay down appropriate conditions concerning air, water, noise, land, biological and socio-economic environment;

(v) The EAC shall have due regard to the assurance furnished by the concessionaire to this Court that it is willing to adopt and implement necessary safeguards bearing in mind international best practices governing greenfield airports;

(vi) We grant liberty to the State of Goa as the project proponent and the MoEFCC, as the case may be, to file the report of the EAC before this Court in the form of a Miscellaneous Application so as to facilitate the passing of appropriate orders in the proceedings; and

(vii) No other Court or Tribunal shall entertain any challenge to the report that is to be submitted before this Court by the EAC in compliance with the present order.”

Pending the completion of the process mandated in the above terms, this Court suspended the EC which had been granted on 28 October 2015.

The directions issued by this Court required the EAC:

(i) To revisit its recommendations for the grant of the EC including the conditions which it had imposed; and

(ii) To impose, in the event that it allowed the construction of the airport to proceed additional conditions to adequately protect the concerns governing the terrestrial eco-systems noticed in the judgment, besides formulating conditions pertaining to air, water, noise, land, biological and socio-economic environment. While doing so, the EAC was under a mandate to take into consideration the specific concerns which were highlighted in the judgment.

2. The basis of the directions that were issued by this Court was formulated in the penultimate paragraph of the judgment which reads thus:

“174.Bearing in view the necessity to maintain a balance between the need for an airport and