‘Be ready for exemplary costs’: SC raps Congress MP Jairam Ramesh for challenging Centre's office memorandum

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday reprimanded Congress MP Jairam Ramesh for challenging an Office Memorandum issued by the Centre to implement the apex court’s judgment on retrospective environmental clearance.A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that since the Office Memorandum was meant to implement an SC judgment, the challenge was effectively against the judgment itself.“Be ready for exemplary costs. We know the design behind this,” a bench led by CJI Surya Kant said. “Can one challenge a judgment by a writ petition? It is just for media consumption,” the bench added.When the bench warned of exemplary costs, Ramesh withdrew his plea.Last year in May, the top court held that the right to live in a pollution-free atmosphere was part of the fundamental right as it struck down the Centre’s Office Memorandum allowing ex post facto or retrospective environmental clearances to projects in violation of norms.“The Union government, as much as individual citizens, has a constitutional obligation to protect the environment,” the court said. It added that it “must come down very heavily” on the Centre’s attempt to do “something which is completely prohibited under the law”.It further observed, “Cleverly, the words ex post facto have not been used, but without using those words, there is a provision to effectively grant ex post facto EC. The 2021 OM has been issued in violation of the decisions of this court….”The Centre, as a result, was restrained from issuing directions for grant of ex post facto clearances in any form or manner or for regularising acts done in contravention of the EIA notification.