National Green Tribunal rejected a petition filed against the construction of Polavaram project

Bhubaneswar: 14/11/17;The Principal Bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) today rejected a petition filed against the construction of Polavaram project, stating that the case is sub-judice in the Supreme Court.

The three-judge NGT bench headed by its chairman Justice Swatanter Kumar besides additional judges Justice Jawad Rahim and Justice Bikram Sajwan disposed the case which came to it through a petition filed by RELA. While rejecting the case the bench asked the petitioner to examine the issues raised by it carefully and claimed that those have already been pending in the apex court.

The NGT bench also cleared the petitioner that taking up the case at this juncture would equal exercising a ‘parallel jurisdiction’ with the Supreme Court, hence avoidable.

The decision on the part of the NGT came after the Andhra Pradesh Government today produced the original applications relating to the Polavaram project that are in the Supreme Court and put forth the matters under contention.

Odisha Government had moved to the apex court in 2016 apprehending that several villages in Malkangiri district will be submerged due to the Polavaram project. It has also expressed its scepticism over environmental clearance, forest clearance and other mat