New Delhi [India], September 2 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Oil India Limited (OIL) to withdraw its interlocutory application challenging the Centre’s refusal to approve its Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) project for extracting hydrocarbons beneath Assam’s Dibru-Saikhowa National Park, with liberty to file a fresh petition.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana passed the order after senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for OIL, sought urgent hearing of the matter.
Dwivedi said the project was crucial to the country’s energy requirements and involved drilling from outside the national park to reach hydrocarbon reserves located 3,500-4,000 metres underground. He argued that ERD was not conventional mining and that the drilling infrastructure would remain outside the protected area.
OIL has challenged the Forest Advisory Committee’s decision and the Environment Ministry’s refusal to approve diversion of 0.069 hectares of forest land for the project.
The company contended that the authorities wrongly relied on the Supreme Court’s 2023 order restricting mining in and around protected areas, and has also cited earlier orders permitting sub-surface hydrocarbon extraction beneath the park using ERD technology.
The company has also relied on earlier orders of the top court in 2017, when it was permitted, subject to conditions and safeguards, to extract hydrocarbons beneath the national park using ERD technology.
It said the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife had recommended the proposal and that the top court subsequently allowed sub-surface hydrocarbon extraction, subject to compliance with environmental and wildlife protection conditions.
It sought to set aside the order of August 02, 2024 passed by the MoEFCC and also the minutes of the meeting of the Forest Advisory Committee of the MoEFCC on July 4, 2024.
The CJI said that since the apex court had sought to close the underlying proceedings, any fresh cause of action should be brought through a new petition. The bench accordingly allowed OIL to withdraw the application with liberty to file a fresh plea. (ANI)
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