Mangaluru : Environmental activist K.N. Somashekar, one among those fighting against the Yettinahole water diversion project, on Saturday sought a public apology from the former Chief Minister M. Veerappa Moily for ‘misleading’ people by saying that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had cleared the project.

Mr. Somashekar told presspersons here that besides Mr. Moily, he has also sought an apology from Venugopal, Superintending Engineer of Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Ltd., Tumakuru circle. Both have been issued notices seeking public apology, failing which he would initiate contempt of court proceedings before the NGT bench at Chennai.

He also said that three applications filed by Purushottam Chitrapur, Kishore Kumar and Yathiraju were pending before the tribunal while his application was pending for admission, challenging the project. In such circumstances, Mr. Moily had made the reported statement for political gains and to mislead people in arid regions of the State, Mr. Somashekar said.

He also alleged that the government was attempting to drag the hearing in cases even as the tribunal is deferring hearing in cases.

When arguments were almost completed on the maintainability of the three applications by December 2015, the Advocate General of Karnataka appeared before the Tribunal in January and raised afresh the maintainability issue.

Still, the applicants advanced fresh arguments and the order was reserved in February.

Despite repeated pleas, the order on maintainability was not pronounced while the tribunal said its expert member was transferred to Delhi and his signature was pending.

During May, the Tribunal said that the expert member had resigned without signing the order and arguments have to be advanced afresh and posted the case to July 4.

Any judicial officer would sign pending orders before demitting the office, either on retirement or by resignation. The state of affairs with this particular case appears strange, Mr. Somashekar said.

Nethravati Sanchaya leader Dinesh Holla and others were present.