New Delhi, Jul 23 (IANS): The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Assam State Biodiversity Board and Oil India Limited how environmental clearance to the proposed drilling of seven wells in the Dibru Saikhowa National Park was permitted without a biodiversity impact assessment.

This was mandated by the Supreme Court in 2017. As per the apex court, the Assam State Biodiversity Board was required to conduct a biodiversity impact assessment.

The petitioners -- Bimal Gogoi and Mridu Pukhan -- contended that as per their information, no such study has been conducted.

In addition, they contended that the environment ministry illegally exempted the project from the requirement of public consultation, including public hearing, without the mandatory report from the Assam State Pollution Control Board.

They said the environmental impact assessment notification mandates that a public hearing can be exempted only based on the report of the state pollution control board.

The petitioners submitted that no such report was submitted by the pollution control board.

In the instant case, the expert committee of the Union Environment Ministry concluded that if public hearing is conducted, it will be the ‘death knell' for the project and that in view of national interest, the public consultation process should be excluded.

The NGT eastern zone bench comprising Justice S.P Wangdi and expert member Nagin Nanda on Monday also took note of the petitioners' contention that the environment impact assessment was done based on data from the US and came to the conclusion that the threat from ‘blowout' can be termed as ‘negligible'.

Listing the matter for next hearing on August 13, the NGT directed the Environment Ministry and the state pollution control board to file a report in the appeal.