Three law students have challenged before the Karnataka High Court a proposed webinar-based public hearings on September 23 by State pollution control Board and Bangalore Development Authority on the eight-lane peripheral road, saying it was “illegal, arbitrary and malafide”.
P B Shashaankh and Pratik Kumar from Jindal Law School and Anushka Gupta from National Law University, Delhi, in their writ petition, raised seminal questions regarding the limited efficacy of webinar being used like a open public hearing for crucial environmental activities.
“As the project causes major environmental impacts to multiple rural and urban communities and the biodiversity of the region, holding the public consultation process virtually restricts multiple vulnerable communities, having no technical means to attend the virtual hearing, from effectively raising their concerns about the project, leading to an abject fail of the ‘public consultation’ process,” they said.
