Giving detailed guidelines, the Supreme Court today asked the centre to set up a national regulator to overlook matters related to environmental clearances and its enforcement and imposing penalties on violators.

A special forest bench headed by the chief justice S H Kapadia on Wednesday asked the government to put the regulatory mechanism in place and file a compliance report within six months.

"We are of the view that under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the Central Government should appoint a National Regulator for appraising projects, enforcing environmental conditions for approvals and to impose penalties on polluters," said the apex court, while deciding the Lafarge matter.

The Supreme Court's direction came while deciding the issue of enviornment clearance given by the Environment ministry to French cement firm Lafarge to mine in the forests of Meghalaya.

The apex court further said that till such regulatory mechanism comes into place, the companies, which need a rapid Environment Impact Assessment of their projects, should obtain it from a panel of accredited institutions, instead of the state machineries.

"... till the time such mechanism is put in place, the MoEF should prepare a Panel of Accredited Institutions from which alone the project proponent should obtain the rapid EIA and that too on the Terms of Reference to be formulated by the MoEF," the apex court said.

In the 115 page long order, the apex court gave many guidelines regarding the environment clearances and said that it can "review the decision-making process to ensure that the decision of MoEF is fair and fully informed, based on the correct principles".

The court further said that in all future projects, the companies proposing project shall comply with the Office Memorandum issued by the MoEF on April 26, 2011. .