Environment ministry’s desperate attempts to suppress expert panel report on Western Ghats

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has managed to evade the directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) asking it to make the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP)  public by May 10. Fearing public disclosure of the report, which calls for ban on mining and other commercial activities  in the ecologically sensitive regions of the Western Ghats, might affect the “commercial and scientific interests of the country”,  the ministry has got Delhi High Court to stay the CIC order.