Environment Clearance Certificate Not Mandatory During Land Acquisition For NHAI Projects, Needed For Construction: Madras High Court

As per the Environment Impact Assessment Notification dated September 14, 2016, obtaining an environment clearance was mandatory for all projects and activities in the nature of expansion of National Highways greater than 100 kms.

Justice Krishnan Ramasamy noted that the clearance was mandatory for all construction activities. The court noted that the construction would happen only after the land is entrusted to the National Highways Authority of India and not at the time of acquisition. The court added that at the time of land acquisition, the land would only be vested with the Government. The court thus concluded that the clearance was not necessary at the time of acquisition but during the commencement of development activities.

“When such being the case, there is no bar for the respondents in issuing Section 3D Notification, prior to the receipt of Environmental Clearance, since the such issuance of Section 3D Notification would not amount to the commencement of construction work or preparation of land by the project management. The said aspect would happen only after the entrustment of land by the Government to the NHAI. Even after such entrustment, the NHAI has to wait until the approval of Environmental Clearance for commencement of construction work or preparation of land in the project site,” the court said.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Anant Mandgi challenging a notification issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways declaring certain lands as acquired for the formation of National Highway “HN 948A”, including land belonging to the petitioner. The second petition was filed against the order of the Special District Revenue Officer (Land Acquisition), rejecting the objections raised by petitioner against the acquisition.

The petitioner argued that the Ministry had made the land acquisition declaration under Section 3D of the National Highways Act without obtaining prior environment clearance. The petitioner also argued that his objections were not properly considered before rejecting the same.

The authorities, on the other hand, argued that the petitioner was given ample opportunities to make objections regarding acquisition of lands but he made wilful attempts to postpone the enquiry.

The court agreed with the authorities and noted that the petitioner had been given ample opportunities to make his objections, which were duly considered at the time of passing the order.

With respect to the argument that environment clearance was not obtained prior to the acquisition, the court noted that the aspect of clearance certificate would arise only subsequent to the entrustment of land with the NHAI. The court noted that at the time of acquisition by way of notification under Section 3D of the Act, the land would vest with the Central Government and commencement of work would begin only after land is entrusted to the NHAI.

“Prior to entrustment of lands to NHAI, the lands are required to be vested with the Central Government and that would happen by issuance of Section 3D Notification. Merely, the issuance of Section 3D Notification would not be considered as commencement of actual work or execution of proposed work/project. Such commencement/execution will happen only after the entrustment of lands by the Government to NHAI,” the court said.

Though the petitioner argued that the Supreme Court in the decision of Project Director v. PV Krishnamurthy had mandated obtaining environment clearance even for acquisition, the court noted that the Supreme Court had made the observations keeping in mind that land once obtained cannot be reverted back to the respective land owners.

The court noted that in the same judgment, in subsequent paragraphs the court had noted that Environment Clearance was required only prior to the commencement of actual construction work or execution of proposed work, which could occur only after entrustment of land to the NHAI. The court thus concluded that environmental clearance is not required to be obtained before issuance of Section 3D notification but prior to the commencement of construction work by NHAI.

The court also noted that the petition was not filed with public interest but only for the petitioner's private interest. The court was thus not inclined to entertain the pleas and dismissed the same.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. S. R. Raghunathan, Asst. by Mr. Manjunath Karthikeyan, Ms. Pavithra Sundararajan, Ms. Archita Aneesh

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. R. Rajesh Vivekananthan, Deputy Solicitor General of India, Ms.S. R. Sumathy

Case Title: Anant Mandgi v. Union of India and Others

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 126

Case No: W.P.Nos.29753 & 29755 of 2019