'Environment Impact Assessment' Draft Translated In 22 Vernacular Languages: Centre Tells Delhi High Court

The Central Government on Friday informed the Delhi High Court that it has translated the Draft EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) in 22 vernacular languages.

A bench comprising of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan was dealing with a revision petition filed by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change against the order passed by the court on June 30, whereby the Ministry was directed to extend the deadline for seeking public comments on the Draft Environment Impact Assessment Policy 2020. 

The bench accordingly granted a period of 60 days for the purpose of online publication of the translated draft in order to enable filing of objections from the concerned stakeholders.

During the course of hearing, ASG Chetan Sharma apprised the Court that the draft EIA notification has been translated in compliance of its earlier order.

The Court said that it expects the Union of India and other agencies of Central Government to comply with the Court order in letters and spirit.

Earlier, the Central Government had informed the Court that it will translate and publish the Draft EIA in 22 vernacular languages.

Filed in a disposed off writ petition titled Vikrant Tongad v. Union of India, the modification plea stated that if the direction to extend the deadline is not issued to the Central Government, the letter and spirit of this court's order dated 30/06/20 will be defeated.

The court had also directed the Environment Ministry to translate the draft policy in at least the languages mentioned in the VII Schedule of the Constitution, and make the same available on the website of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, as well as the respective Environment Ministries and State Pollution Control Boards of all respective states.

It was argued by the Petitioner that as per the RTI reply received from the concerned Ministry, the draft policy has only been translated in 3 languages as on 30th July 2020, namely Marathi, Oriya and Nepali. Moreover, the Petitioner got to know that it is only recently that the translations have been made in Bengali, Telugu and Konkani.

Therefore, it was the case of the Petitioner that the non-compliance of the court's June 30 order had further hampered the public consultation process.

Case Title: Vikrant Tongad v. UOI