Due to the 83-day long tussle between the Chairman and Member Secretary of Madhya Pradesh State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (MP-SIA), 237 environmental clearances (EC) given without a meeting are now under legal question. On the petition filed in the Supreme Court, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in its counter affidavit has said that there is no provision for any kind of deemed clearance in the Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006. The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that SEAC had completed its assessment in these 237 cases, but due to no meeting of SEAC, the final decision could not be taken. Therefore, now the legally correct step would be to put all these matters in the formal meeting of MP-SIA and take a decision again. The Supreme Court will hear this case on October 13. The fact-finding committee presented in the Supreme Court in its report clarified that the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC or SIEC) is only an evaluation and recommendation body. Only the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAI or SIA) has the legal authority to give final approval. Under the EIA Notification 2006, no authority (State officials) has the power to issue deemed clearance. The investigation was conducted on the instructions of the Supreme Court, this was revealed. On the instructions of the Supreme Court, the Environment Ministry formed a fact-finding committee in 2025 under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary Dr. Amandeep Garg. Investigation revealed that MP-SIA meeting was not held for 83 days. During this period, 237 deemed ECs were issued. These included 186 EC, 37 TOR, 10 rejection and 4 transfer/validity extension cases.
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मध्यप्रदेश में 237 पर्यावरण मंजूरी नियम विरुद्ध: अब सिया बैठक में फैसला, केंद्र ने कहा- डीम्ड क्लीयरेंस का प्रावधान नहीं; 13 अक्टूबर को सुनवाई
