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3. In the reply filed by the AERB-respondent No.2, it was pleaded that it had no role in the selection of the site of nuclear power plant (hereinafter referred to as 'NPP'). The site was to be selected by the Site Evaluation Committee of the Department of Atomic Power Energy. The function of the AERB is to grant consent for nuclear power plants as per the Atomic Energy Act, 1962. The siting/seeking consent for the nuclear power plant was to be sought by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (for short, the 'NPCIL) and no such application had been submitted by the NPCIL. After the selection of the site, application for seeking consent was submitted to the AERB by NPCIL and then evaluation was to be carried out regarding the effect of external events such as earthquake, flood etc. and after the satisfactory review of the Site Evaluation Committee followed by advisory committee for Project Safety Review which consisted of expert members of the Board, the consent was to be granted.

4. Respondent No.3-NPCIL took the plea that while issuing notification under Section 6 of the Act, the words "read with clause (c) of sub-section (2) of Section 17" inadvertently got incorporated in the said notification and a notification/corrigendum dated 21.09.2011 was published omitting those words from the said notification. The corrigendum was published in 'The Hindu', 'Dainik Jagran' and 'Dainik Bhaskar'. For development of sources of energy to meet the huge demand of the country for electric energy in an efficient and cost effective way, no single source or a set of sources could meet the demand and all sources needed to be deployed optimally. The energy mix needs to be diversified considering the volatility and the uncertainty of international energy security. Due to the thorium resources which were abundant, the demand could be met and nuclear power was clean and devoid of green house gas emissions and needed less land per megawatt and keeping in view the energy intensity, the same did not put a large demand on transportation and handling infrastructure in comparison to other sources of energy like thermal coal plants. The nuclear power plants planned at Gorakhpur are indigenous 4 units of 700 megawatt pressurised heavy water reactors being a part of 3 stage nuclear power programme and the answering respondent had an impeccable record of safety with no instance of release of radioactivity beyond the limits stipulated by the AERB. It has the experience of operating nuclear power plants exceeding 40 years. The siting of the nuclear power plants which is to be established for the first time was known as virgin/green-field site and as per the Site Selection Committee, constituted by the Department of Atomic Energy-respondent No.1 on 28.12.1998 for the purpose of identification of location, for setting up future atomic power stations, the committee had identified and recommended new site at Kumharia, Haryana amongst others on 20.05.2003. Thereafter, on 06.09.2005, another Site Selection Committee (for short, the 'SSC') was constituted which was to review the position of the sites recommended by the earlier Committee and was to submit its report by 31.12.2005. The new Committee recommended number of inland and coastal sites which included Kumharia, Fatehabad Unit. The Committee considered the water availability, its drawl and discharge, its quality, radioactive liquid effluent management and thermal pollution etc. The Committee consisted of expert members drawn from Government bodies such as Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research, Hyderabad, NPCIL. The recommendations of the Committee had been submitted to the Government of India and vide letter dated 08.10.2009, the Government had conveyed its approval in principal and the Cabinet Committee on Security for five new sites which included the site in question. The State Government, thereafter, nominated Haryana Power Generation Corporation Ltd. (HPGCL) which was to coordinate and support NPCIL for the pre-project activities like land acquisition, environmental clearance, specialized studies, water availability etc. vide letter dated 06.11.2009. ON 22.10.2008, the NPCIL was authorized by the Secretary, DAE, Government of India to act as the nodal agency on behalf of the Government and to commence land acquisition and pre-project activities. On 02.12.2009, under the Chairmanship of Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary (Finance), Government of Haryana, a meeting was held and issues relating to land acquisition, relocation and rehabilitation policy, security and access control etc. were discussed. The NPCIL, vide letter dated 11.05.2010, intimated the District Revenue Officer that requirement of land was 1505 acres which had been considerably reduced as earlier indicated. The minimum exclusion zone in the radius of 1 KM had been approved and the action for seeking clearance from the Ministry of Environment and AERB had been done and the answering respondent awarded a consultancy contract to M/s MECON, Ranchi to carry out environmental impact assessment as per the existing procedure as defined in EIA notification dated 14.09.2006. The project feasibility report was approved after deliberation as per the letter dated 13.10.2010. Notice under Section 9 of the Act was issued and the Land Acquisition Collector (LAC) had called upon the answering respondent to deposit a sum of `447,73,24,997/- towards part of the compensation. The Government of Haryana had brought out a comprehensive policy for rehabilitation and resettlement of landowners in November, 2010 and the landowners had been adequately compensated. The land in question involved minimum displacement of human beings and given its topography and geographical location including accessibility. It was erroneous to contend that the land was sought to be acquired without due assessment qua suitability of the same for the project. The feasibility report had been prepared and approved by the Ministry of Environment. The decision of establishing the nuclear power plant was entrusted to the regulatory authorities like respondent No.2 who are expert bodies. Thus, it is wrong to contend that the ongoing project could cause serious and irreversible harm to human health and environment and that precautionary measures have not been taken. In fact, the establishment, maintenance and operations of the project were to be carried out under the strict vigilance of the answering respondent and as per the guidelines framed from time to time. The notification dated 14.09.2006 provided the opportunity of public hearing especially taking into account the environment concerns of the area raised by the people concerned and the clearance was subject to the management plan. The private interest had to yield to larger public interest and the location of the site was suitable and the water requirement for generation of electricity is minimal as compared to the overall availability of water in the canal as only 160 cubic feet per second was for consumptive use and the same would not cause any stagnation of water to be utilized and the remaining water was to be returned to the sources.

5. In the reply filed by Ministry of Environment & Forests, respondent No.4, it was pleaded that the site selection for setting up the NPP does not fall in its domain and the same fell within the domain of Department of Atomic Energy, respondent No.1. The notification dated 14.09.2006 provided the construction of new projects and modernization of existing projects. The setting up of NPP and processing of nuclear fuel fell within Category A of Schedule attached with the said notification and required prior environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment & Forests. As per letter dated 13.10.2010, the Ministry of Environment & Forests had prescribed terms for undertaking detailed environment impact assessment study and the proponent was required to get the public hearing conducted as per the procedure prescribed in the notification and public hearing was to be addressed in the final environment impact assessment report. The Ministry had not yet received the report which was to be prepared by the NPCIL.

12. The issue regarding the suitability of the site and whether a proper site had been selected and proper procedure had been followed is also explained in detail in the reply filed by the NPCIL which was given the job of "siting the NPP" which was to be established for the first time. The SSC is a statutory body constituted by the Central Government on 28.12.1998 in exercise of its powers to carry out certain regulatory functions regarding the siting of such plants. The SSC, which was constituted by the DAE (respondent No.1), recommended various sites out of which, one was Kumharia, District Fatehabad, Hisar, the site in question, apart from 4 other sites in northern India falling in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and U.P. A perusal of the report of the Chairman and Managing Director would go on to show that the working group members drawn from various organisations had participated in the collection, scrutiny and review of the site related characteristics and also in preparing the recommendations and conclusions. The working group members were expert members from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research (AMD), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) and Units of NPCIL. Respondent No.1, thereafter, on 06.09.2005, constituted a fresh SSC of 9 members and the Chairman was the Managing Director of the NPCIL apart from various other members from the CEA, representative from the MOEF; AERB; Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam; Director, Health Safety & Environment Group; BARC, Mumbai; Director, Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research, Hyderabad; Executive Director (Corporate Planning), NPCIL; Sh.M.N.Ray, ACE, NPCIL, Mumbai. The SSC was to recommend a panel of coastal sites for setting up of NPPs of 4000 to 6000 megawatts on the basis of electricity regions in the country and to indicate the order of suitability of sites selected in each electricity region and also to consider the sites recommended by the earlier SSC and review the position in the light of the changes that have taken place in the intervening period apart from considering new sites. The SSC was to submit its recommendations by 31.12.2005. The site at Kumharia which is situated at the left bank of the Bhakra main canal in Fatehabad District having water requirement for setting up of 4 x 700 megawatts had been committed by the State Government of Haryana vide letter dated 06.02.2006. The population of the exclusion zone was nil and the total area was moderately cultivated agricultural land and the sub-strata of the soil was alluvial. It was also considered that there was possibility of canal closure for maintenance. The canal closure for maintenance was very infrequent and it was also possible that the maintenance outage of NPP could be synchronised with the canal closure and provision for site storage water to cool safety related system could be made as quantities of water for shutdown cooling was much smaller. The site was close to international border and the strategic aspect and location of the new NPP required technical clearance from Ministry of Defence which was also taken into consideration. Various other factors were taken into consideration including the population of the area where the land was situated including Village Gorakhpur, Village Kajal Heri and the fact that since there was no population in the area, there would be no rehabilitation problems. It was also noticed that the site was 06 Kms from national highway No.10 and the route Delhi to Hisar and further upto Kharakheri was a black-topped national highway and was considered good to pass ODC and heavy equipment related to 220 MW units. The equipment could be brought to site and transported further since the nearest railway head was 22 KM South-Western of the site. It was also noticed that action on site clearance on safety angle from AERB and on environmental angle from MOEF would be necessary. Thereafter, on 08.10.2009, respondent No.1, in principle, approved the new site and wrote to the Chairman, Managing Director of NPCIL who, vide letter dated 06.11.2009, through its Chief Secretary, Haryana, Chandigarh, appointed Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited as the nodal agency. Respondent No.1, on the other hand, appointed NPCIL as its nodal agency authorising them to commence the land acquisition and pre-project activities and requested the State Government to appoint a nodal officer with whom NPCIL could interact for expeditious resolution of issues that may arise. In a meeting held on 02.12.2009 between the officers of the State Government and NPCIL, it was clarified that the exclusion zone of the project had been reduced from 1.6 KM to 1 KM and the requirement of land had also been reduced. A meeting was to be held with the media persons, sarpanches and prominent persons of the area to allay the fears and apprehension about the setting up of a NPP. Vide letter dated 11.05.2010, the NPCIL took out a digital map of the boundary of the village and surveyed the area under acquisition and came to the conclusion that the total requirement was 1505 acres and fresh list of the khasra numbers was prepared in the draft of Section 4 notification and a request was made to the LAC to take necessary action for issuing the said notification. Accordingly, in pursuance of the said letter, notification dated 29.07.2010 was issued. Thus, from a perusal of the facts detailed above, it would be clear that proper procedure had been followed by a committee which had been set up by respondent No.1 to review the earlier sites and the said committee made its recommendations and the same had been accepted by respondent No.2. Thus, the submission of the counsel for the petitioners that no procedure had been followed for selection of the site is without any basis and necessarily is rejected.