NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain the Centre's plea against the Calcutta High Court order upholding the maintainability of PILs alleging violations of the Forest Rights Act in obtaining consent for the Great Nicobar Island mega-infrastructure project.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana dismissed the Centre's plea while noting that the matter is already pending before the high court and is scheduled to come up for hearing on November 25 and 26.
It asked the high court to hear the matter, including all pending petitions, on the date fixed.
At the outset, Attorney General R Venkataramani submitted that the issue was of "great national importance" and questioned the maintainability of the PIL on the issue.
He submitted that the environmental clearance for the project had already been challenged before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and expressed concern over multiple proceedings being initiated subsequently.
"Somebody comes and files a petition years later, and then three different petitions try to challenge it in three different ways. Then they say the tribal are affected and they are not before the court. Now they have got those tribal groups impleaded," Venkataramani submitted.
He contended that the question of maintainability went to the root of the matter and requested the court to allow the Centre to make further submissions on the issue.
"I just want to keep the door open; nothing else. Allow us to at least say something," he said.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, also appearing in the matter, said that the proceedings before the NGT concerning the environmental clearance have seen two rounds.
Senior advocate S Muralidhar, appearing for a tribal council which was impleaded in the matter, submitted that this issue concerns Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG), and hence a Public Interest Litigation is maintainable.
Justice Bagchi told the attorney general that since there was already a decision on maintainability, the questions concerning the public interest involved and the scope of the petition could be kept open.
Muralidhar, however, submitted that the question of how far the public interest survived might itself become academic, since the Tribal Council had filed an application for impleadment.
Justice Bagchi said that the broader question concerns the constitutional protection of the identity and culture of indigenous communities.
Referring to the demographic changes in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, he observed that the Great Andamanese had become integrated with the mainstream population.
"Do they become integrated completely with the mainstream, or do we keep them with their unique identity and the identity of their culture?" Justice Bagchi asked, adding, "Preservation of culture is a constitutionally protected fundamental right."
Venkataramani replied that the Centre was not referring to vulnerable tribes in the context of the submissions and was instead speaking about people who had become integrated with the mainstream.
The CJI said that the top court would request the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to take up the matter at the earliest.
Bhati said the court was subsequently informed that there were other proceedings before the high court concerning the same issue.
The bench ordered that the main case before the high court has been fixed for hearing on November 25-26.
"Let the high court take necessary steps to complete pleadings in the other matters and make an endeavour to hear all the matters on the date fixed," the bench said, adding that both sides had assured the court their full cooperation in the proceedings.
On May 6, the high court upheld the maintainability of PILs before it alleging violations in obtaining consent for the project.
The PILs before the high court challenged various governmental actions linked to the Great Nicobar development project, including alleged violations of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, and reduction of eco-sensitive buffer zones around national parks.
The Centre had raised a preliminary objection of maintainability of the PIL on the ground that the petitioner, former bureaucrat Meena Gupta, lacked locus standi, as she was a resident of Hyderabad and not the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
However, the high court observed that there could be "no thumb rule" regarding locus standi in PILs and that courts must permit genuine public causes concerning vulnerable communities to be raised even by persons not directly affected.
It held that merely because a project involves enormous expenditure or national importance, it does not become immune from judicial review.
Aggrieved by the order, the Centre approached the top court.