New Delhi | Days after the Kalladi landslide in Kerala's Wayanad, an open letter has been written to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), demanding action against experts, agencies, and officials involved in giving clearances to the Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi tunnel road project.
The landslide, which killed at least seven persons, took place at the tunnel site on July 7, amid torrential rains.
The letter, written by Thomas Lawrence, CEO of Save Wetlands International Movement (SWIM), alleged that clearances granted to the project were "illegal" and ignored "environmental risks".
The Union environment ministry's forest advisory committee (FAC) gave Stage-1 forest clearance to the project in March 2023, and the final Stage-II clearance in February this year.
The project received environment clearance from the ministry's expert appraisal committee (EAC) in June 2025, according to the letter.
It claims that before granting clearance, "the central expert appraisal committee did not even visit the site or consider the ground realities, and the said body was dissolved thereafter. The company that took the contract Dilip Buildcon is a blacklisted one."
The letter also alleged that the environment impact assessment (EIA) report for the project was flawed due to several reasons.
For instance, the report was prepared by the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) -- which is also the implementing agency for the project, the letter said.
"KRCL is not accredited by the Quality Council of India (QCI) or the National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET) to legally conduct large-scale infrastructure EIAs. This created an inherent conflict of interest to fast-track development approvals," the letter added.
It highlighted that the EIA report deliberately downplayed or completely omitted historical geological hazards in the region.
"The clearance purposely downplayed the region's extreme vulnerability to landslides. The approved route carves directly through a highly unstable fracture line in the Western Ghats -- situated just kilometers away from past catastrophic landslide zones like Puthumala (2019) and Chooralmala-Mundakkai (2024)," the letter said.
The Kerala High Court and the Supreme Court had earlier dismissed PILs which questioned the legal validity of the clearances given to the project.
The letter has urged the Supreme Court to immediately stop all construction activities related to the project, and order a thorough and independent investigation into the environmental clearances granted, the violation of conditions and the safety lapses that led to the tragedy.
It also asked the court to "issue strict guidelines to ensure that no further construction in ecologically-fragile zones proceeds without absolute compliance with environmental laws and safety protocols".
