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More Political BS and Propaganda keeping anything from getting done!

SC puts on hold over 100 projects cleared by Wildlife Board The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre putting on hold around 140 projects cleared by the newly reconstituted National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) under the Union environment ministry. The apex court has said that the nomination of just three of the mandatory 15 members to the wildlife board, along with that of its standing committee, has not been done in consonance with the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.     The NBWL, chaired by the prime minister of India, is an apex body under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 to review all wildlife-related issues. It's standing committee, headed by union environment minister is empowered to appraise all projects that fall within or around national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves. The fresh committee had met on 11-12 August under the chairmanship of minister Prakash Javadekar and cleared almost all the 140 projects on agenda, The union environment ministry is yet to release the minutes of the meeting in the public domain. The petition against the partially constituted NBWL was filed on 1 August, and argued by Sanjay Upadhyay, a senior Supreme Court lawyer. Hearing the petition on August 25, the SC directed that the NBWL may function but its decisions would not be put to effect till the next date of hearing which is expected in the next two weeks. Practically, that will now put on hold the clearances given to the projects by the standing committee. The amicus curia in the case A D N Rao too supported the move to put implementation of decisions on hold. Business Standard had reported the Centre notifying a toothless Board on 22 July by nominating only three non-government experts and institutions instead of the statutory 15. Even out of these, the government decided to nominate a Gujarat government's own institution -- Gujarat Ecological Education and Research Foundation headed by Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel - instead of an independent agency. Another expert it nominated was a retired Gujarat cadre forest service officer, H S Singh.
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