SEIAA must independently verify SEAC recommendations and provide personal hearing before rejecting EC in existing quarry clusters.

COMMON JUDGEMENT

Delivered by Smt. Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, Judicial Member.

1. The above appeals [Appeal No.28 & 29 of 2024 (SZ)]are directed against the rejection of the Environmental Clearance for the purpose of the rough stone quarry lease. The appellants in both appeals are in the business of mining, quarrying, trading, importing, exporting, etc., and dealing with rough stone and gravel along with stone crushing activities in the State of Tamil Nadu.

2. Both the appellants claim that they have been in the business of quarrying and crushing for more than 40 years in the same location with various quarry approvals. The appellants have operated with proper licenses and complied with the norms for all these years and never had any complaints so far.

3. The appellants in Appeal No.28 and 29 of 2024 were desirous of doing the business of mining minor minerals i.e. rough stone and gravel quarry and purchased land measuring an extent of 2.93.0 Hectares of patta land comprised in S.F. No.391 of Belladhi Village, Mettupalayam Taluk and an extent of 4.90.0 Hectares of patta land in S.F. No.3340 (P) and 341/3 (P) in Bellathy Village respectively.

4. The appellants also had applied for quarry stone and gravel in the subject land and the proposal was accepted based on the field inspection by the Revenue Department and the lease proposal was recommended for five years under Rule 19 (1) of the Tamil Nadu Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as ‘TNMMCR, 1959’). Pursuant to the said recommendation, the Precise Area Communication letter was also issued by the Assistant Director of Geology and Mining, Coimbatore on 09.09.2020 (Appeal No.28/2024) & 20.09.2021 (Appeal No.29/2024), directing the appellants to furnish an approved mining plan and also to produce the Environmental Clearance certificate from the competent authority as per the TNMMCR, 1959. Due to the presence of quarries within 500 Meters radius of the subject quarry, the Assistant Director of Geology and Mining issued a Cluster Certificate dated 10.03.2021 (Appeal No.28/2024) & 15.12.2021 (Appeal No.29/2024). The Mining Plan prepared by the appellants were also approved under the TNMMCR, 1959 on 10.03.2021 and 15.12.2021 respectively.

5. Thereafter, the appellants made an application in Form – I and Form – IM along with other requisites for the issuance of Terms of Reference (ToR) for their respective subject areas, which are admittedly less than 5 Hectares, vide Online Proposal No.SIA/TN/MIN/6152/2022 dated 27.4.2022 & File No.9221 and Online Proposal No.SIA/TN/MIN/77789/2022 dated 04.06.2022 & File No.9309 respectively.

6. The proposals were placed in the State Expert Appraisal Committee – Tamil Nadu (hereinafter referred to as ‘SEAC – Tamil Nadu’) Meeting and the SEAC – Tamil Nadu reviewed all the information provided therein and presentation was made and the ToR was issued with public hearing along with stringent conditions. Thereafter, the proposal was placed before the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority - Tamil Nadu (hereinafter referred to as ‘SEIAA – Tamil Nadu’), which accepted the recommendation of the SEAC – Tamil Nadu, and decided to grant ToR along with public hearing and further directed to conduct a Combined Environmental Impact Assessment, including cluster study and preparation of separate Environment Management Plan.

7. Pursuant to the ToR, the EIA Study was conducted and the Final EIA Study report was submitted to the SEIAA – Tamil Nadu. Apart from that, the public hearing was also condu