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11. The applicant had produced some of the photographs of the quarrying pit and the surrounding houses which developed cracks as Annexure.A.2.

12. The Environment Clearance(EC) as required under Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 which is mandatory for mining/quarrying operations of minor minerals even if the mining area is less than 5 hectares as per the decision of the Apex Court in Deepak Kumar vs Union of India 2012 (4) SCC 629 and this judgement was rendered on 27.02.2012. The 3rd respondent following the same applied for securing Environmental clearance for their building stone quarrying in the said land on 25.03.2014. The 3rd respondent submitted a mining plan along with it and he was granted with Environmental Clearance by 2nd respondent by proceedings no. 237/SEIAA/KL/885/2014 dated 27.11.2014. for 5 years without any Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) . The dimension of the stone is 30,000 cubic meter and the building stone to be mined is 2,85,000 tonnes/annum as per the Environmental Clearance at the relevant time. A true copy of the said Environmental Clearance granted to the 3rd respondent by the 2nd respondent dated 27.04.2014 was produced as Annexure.A.3.

31. Apart from this, while the mining license was issued to the respondent, it was clearly stated under the Environment Clearance that there would be no damage on the environment or bio diversity as the mine was an existing one.

32. The Applicant had made numerous claims solely against the activities of the 3rd respondent without consideration of the fact that the quarry which was leased to the 3rd respondent was not a virgin quarry but a pre-existing quarry that had already been mined before. This fact was mentioned in both the Environment Clearance granted to them and also the report submitted by the joint committee wherein it was mentioned that quarrying activities in that area is being done since 2003 onwards. But the quarrying operation of the 3rd respondent started only in the year 2015.

35. A joint reading of the above said Office memorandum dated 24.12.2013, along with the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006. It will be seen that the project that falls under Category B2 do not require an Environment Impact Assessment report for receiving an Environmental Clearance.

36. So, the allegations made by the applicant that Environment Clearance was granted without getting any Environment Impact Assessment report is not correct.

42. The applicant is not entitled for any of the reliefs claimed in the application and they prayed for dismissal of the application.

43. The 3rd respondent also filed an additional counter affidavit contending as follows:

The respondent had submitted their application for Environment Clearance with respect of the project area on 25.03.2014. At that point of time, the SEIAA was not insisting for any approved Mining Plan for filing an application for Environment Clearance since, the Government of Kerala had not notified the standards for preparing a mining plan and empowered any authority to approve a mining plan.