The National Green Tribunal has asked Mirzapur Thermal Energy – an Adani Group subsidiary – to respond to claims that it is illegally building a coal-fired power plant on forest land in Uttar Pradesh.

The tribunal’s direction, on August 16, came on a plea by Debadityo Sinha, the founder of the Vindhyan Ecology and Natural History Foundation.

Sinha told the court that Mirzapur Thermal Energy was “undertaking illegal construction activities at the site by clearing the vegetation and forest using massive earthwork and levelling the land”.

The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter after the Hindustan Times reported in July that the 1,600-megawatt power plant is being built in one of India’s last remaining habitats for endangered sloth bears, in the state’s Mirzapur Forest Division.

On June 28, Sinha’s foundation wrote to the Union environment ministry about a “serious and grave violation” of various environmental laws at the project site, which is located in the Marihan Range of the Mirzapur Forest Division.

“This area is part of the proposed Sloth Bear Conservation Reserve and is a crucial habitat for exceptionally rich and threatened wildlife of the savannah and tropical dry deciduous hill forests of the unique Vindhyan-Kaimoor ecosystem,” the group said.

The sloth bear conservation reserve was proposed by the state forest department in 2019 based on field studies undertaken by the Vindhyan Ecology and Natural History Foundation.

The group also said that the area’s ecosystem is home to at least 23 other animals, including leopards, striped hyenas and blackbucks, protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

In 2016, the National Green Tribunal cancelled the Union environment ministry’s clearance for the power plant in response to a plea by Sinha.

At the time, the project was being undertaken by a company named Welspun Energy. The court had restrained Welspun Energy from carrying out “any developmental work at the project site”.

It is this same order that is now being allegedly violated by Mirzapur Thermal Energy, which has taken over the project.

“Since the applicant has alleged non-compliance of the order of the Tribunal, therefore, we direct issuance of notice to the respondents,” the National Green Tribunal said on August 16.

In June, Mirzapur Thermal Energy sought fresh Environment Clearance for the power plant, proposed to be built on 365 hectares of land.

On August 1 – after the National Green Tribunal took suo motu cognisance of the matter – the Union government told Parliament that the project required only 8.5 hectares of forest land to build a water pipeline and roads.

In June, however, Sinha had told Scroll that the entire project site was ecologically sensitive. He said the area was due to be notified as a legal “forest” as per a state government notification dating back to 1952.

Pending official notification, the area must still be treated as a “forest” in keeping with the Supreme Court’s seminal TN Godavarman judgement, Sinha said.

The Godavarman judgement states that the word “forest” is to be “understood according to its dictionary meaning”, and that the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, “for the conservation of forests and the matters connected therewith must apply clearly to all forests so understood”.

As per this reasoning, there can be no question that the land on which the power plant is being built is a forest, experts have previously told Scroll.

Also read: Adani power plant will destroy more forests than projected, experts say