New Delhi, Nov. 28 -- In a new turn to an application on the Great Nicobar Holistic Development project being heard by the National Green Tribunal, the bench has decided that it will only refer to pleadings on record filed by the respective parties. It will not refer to parts of the high powered committee which were not made public and not made available to the applicant.

The high powered committee report of the Union environment ministry on revisiting the environmental clearance granted to the Great Nicobar project was submitted to the NGT in a sealed cover and was not made available to the applicant, Ashish Kothari.

Kothari's lawyer had recently filed an interlocutory application stating the sealed cover process ought to be deprecated...