The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to file its reply to a plea by the Orissa government for quashing the environment clearance granted to the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh. The state fears that a large part of land would be submerged because of the project. A notice in this regard was issued by a Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma after senior counsel Raju Ramachandran, who argued for the Orissa government, submitted that the project would adversely affect the interests of the state. Moving a fresh application, the BJD government, headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, urged the court to quash the clearance on the grounds that it would affect the lives of thousands of people in the state. Ramachandran questioned the Centre