Notice issued on suit challenging Jaitapur n-plant

Mumbai (CNST), Apr.12: The Bombay High Court Thursday issued notice to the government, Nuclear Power Corporation of India and others in a public suit challenging the proposed 9,900-MW Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project coming up in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. Justice D. D. Sinha and Justice VK Tahilramani issued the notice returnable next week, lawyer R.N. Kachwe for the activist-petitioner Hemant Patil said. Patil contended that the JNPP could pose severe environmental and radiation hazards to the local population. "I have demanded an independent commission of experts be constituted to lookinto all these aspects before the projects is given the go-ahead," Patil, who is also president of the anti-corruption NGO, Rashtriya Bhrastachar VirodhiJanshakti, said. He also urged the court appoint a Court Commissioner to verify the actual position ofthe entire project and its impact on human, wild life, flora and fauna and the sea waters. The JNPP, planned in Madban-Jaitapur villages, hasbeen facing stiff resistance from the locals and a majority of the state opposition partiessince the past one-and-half years after it was cleared by the centre. "We have prayed for injunction against the NPCIL and Areva of France, restraining them from proceeding ahead with the project till the pendency of the case," Kachwe said. This Story Copyrights © 2012 IANS