Green Tribunal to hear ACT challenge against environmental clearance for Stage IV on merit

The National Green Tribunal has turned down the demand to reject the ACT challenge against Teesta hydel project Stage-IV on technical grounds and ruled that it will hear the case on merit instead.
A press communiqué issued by the working president, Affected Citizens of Teesta, Tseten Lepcha, informs that at a hearing held on 29 August in the Eastern Zone bench of the NGT at Kolkata, the Tribunal rejected the appeal by the NHPC, Govt of Sikkim and the Ministry of Environment & Forests who wanted the petition filed by Tenzing Lepcha to be dismissed on technical grounds for having been filed too late.
The petition calls on the National Green Tribunal to cancel the environmental clearance issued to NHPC for Teesta Stage-IV.
The respondents had challenged the maintainability of the litigation on the technical grounds, pointing out that it had been filed too late. The bench condoned the delay and instead passed orders for hearing the case on merit.
The NGT also dismissed the appeal seeking a stay on all works on the project on the grounds submitted by NHPC that no work has started so far.