The Calcutta High Court has upheld the maintainability of public interest litigations alleging that the Great Nicobar Project violates the Forest Rights Act, Live Law reported on Friday.
Rejecting the Union government’s objection that the petitioner did not have the legal capacity to file the plea as she not a resident of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen said that there can be “no thumb rule” regarding locus standi in public interest litigations.
The bench said that the courts must permit genuine public causes concerning vulnerable communities to be raised even by persons who are not directly affected, the legal news outlet reported.
The bench added that the law provides that “if a person or class of persons by reason of poverty, helplessness or disability or socially or economically disadvantageous positions, is unable to approach to court for relief, for redressal of their grievance, any member of the public can approach the court”.
It said: “The tribal population in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a very vulnerable tribal groups and they are ordinarily not accessible to common men.”
The Great Nicobar Project includes the construction of new townships, a power plant, a greenfield international airport and a transshipment port.
It is expected to use 166 sq km of the Great Nicobar island, which is part of the Nicobar Islands. The island falls within the Sundaland Biodiversity Hotspot, spanning the western half of the Indonesian archipelago.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of large infrastructure projects on the Shompen, a vulnerable tribal group, and the Nicobarese community. The project has also faced criticism for its potential impact on the island’s biodiversity, rainforests and endemic species.
In the court, three connected pleas have been filed by Meena Gupta, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer, challenging several governmental actions linked to the Great Nicobar Project, the legal news portal reported.
This included alleged violations of the 2006 Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act and reduction of eco-sensitive buffer zones around national parks.
The Union government argued that the public interest litigations were not maintainable as Gupta, a permanent resident of Hyderabad, had no direct cause of action in the islands, Live Law reported.
The tribal communities for whose benefit the pleas were filed were not parties before the court, the Union government argued, adding that the sovereign right of the state to execute strategic projects must prevail.
The petitioner contended that she had served as a secretary in Ministry of Tribal Affairs, participated in the finalisation of the Forest Rights Bill which became the law, and was instrumental in replacing the expression “Primitive Tribal Groups” with “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups”, Live Law reported.
Gupta had spent a part of her childhood in the islands and had closely followed the problems concerning tribal rights in Great Nicobar, the bench cited her pleas as saying.
Upholding the maintainability, the court referred to several previous cases and noted that pleas are meant to secure justice for disadvantaged communities who are unable to access courts themselves.
Merely because a project involves enormous expenditure or national importance, it does not become immune from judicial review, Live Law quoted the court as having observed.
The matter has been listed for final hearing on June 23.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar
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