New Delhi: A recent ruling by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Karnataka’s Honnavar Port project has raised deep concerns about the future of environmental governance and public participation in India. In a controversial decision, the NGT allowed the reuse of a public hearing held 12 years ago in 2012 for approving a fresh environmental clearance granted in 2024, sidestepping the need for new community consultation.
This move, environmental experts argue, has undermined constitutional rights, environmental protections, and the voices of coastal communities who fear the irreversible damage this port may cause.
The Rs 607 crore Honnavar Port project a public-private partnership between Karnataka Maritime Board and Honnavar Port Pvt Ltd was first cleared in 2012 after a thinly attended public hearing where all 10 participants, including the local MLA, opposed the plan. That clearance expired in 2024. But instead of holding a fresh public hearing as required under India’s Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) rules, the Karnataka SEIAA revived the old clearance using outdated data, citing a technical loophole.
The NGT backed this approach, arguing that litigation time can be excluded from the validity period of public hearings—a claim legal experts say strains the EIA law beyond recognition. Under the 2006 EIA Notification and its 2021 Amendment, such exemptions apply only if over 50% of a project’s physical work is done. At Honnavar, only 5% of work had started.
“This verdict undermines the spirit of the law,” said legal observers. “Public hearings are meant to protect community rights, not be technical formalities recycled a decade later.”
Local fisherfolk whose livelihoods depend on the Sharavathi River estuary have been shut out of the process. The fishing village of Kasarkod, home to over 3,700 families, was not even mentioned in the latest Environmental Impact Assessment report. No assessment was done of how the port and its railway-road corridor planned just 50 metres from the high tide line would impact fisheries, sea erosion, or turtle nesting.
The report also ignored Olive Ridley turtles, Karnataka’s only sea turtle species. The biodiversity survey cited by the NGT was carried out in August outside the December-to-March nesting season leading experts to liken it to “visiting a tiger reserve off-season and concluding there are no tigers.”
Environmentalists warn this sets a dangerous precedent. The NGT justified its ruling by citing a 2017 exemption granted to Mumbai Port Trust, but that case involved an expansion of existing offshore berths not a new land-based port. Legal scholars say this comparison is flawed and irrelevant.
“This verdict suggests that if one project got away with sidestepping rules, others can too. That’s not how the rule of law works,” said environmental advocate Sreeja Chakraborty.
Public outrage grew after the Gram Sabha in January 2025 attended by over 350 villagers opposed the project. Their objections, however, were dismissed because they came after the SEIAA had granted clearance, despite the fact that the community was never properly consulted in the first place.
India’s Constitution, international commitments like the Rio Declaration 1992, and the Paris Agreement 2015 all uphold the right of citizens to participate in decisions that affect their environment. Yet, this ruling ignores these protections, critics say, reducing environmental democracy to a forgotten formality.
The NGT’s decision not only overlooks the ecological and social costs but risks turning India’s environmental safeguards into loopholes exploitable by developers. By prioritizing industrial growth over community rights and ecological health, the ruling weakens conservation protections and endangers the very purpose of environmental law.
“If this ruling stands unchallenged,” experts warn, “it opens the door for more projects to escape public scrutiny—just by dragging litigation for years until the public’s right to be heard expires.”
At its core, this case reflects a worrying shift from environmental rule of law to rule by loophole raising urgent questions about the future of democratic environmental governance in India.