CUTTACK: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) East Zone Bench has slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 each on the chief secretary and seven other officials of the Odisha government for failing to appear through counsel before the tribunal and file responses in a case concerning alleged illegal sand mining in Angul district.
The bench of Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi (judicial member), and expert members A Senthil Vel and Ishwar Singh imposed the fine on the eight respondents, observing that the repeated non-appearance of their counsels was delaying the adjudication of environmental issues.
Apart from the chief secretary, the other respondents include the principal secretary of the Water Resources department, SP of Angul, deputy director of mines (Talcher circle), regional transport officer (Angul), tehsildars of Talcher and Parjang, and inspector-in-charge of Talcher police station.
The order, issued on September 28, was uploaded on Tuesday. The tribunal was hearing a petition filed by a Talcher-based NGO alleging mining beyond the permitted lease area and excess extraction by the private lessee of Nizgarhzami Sand Quarry, locally known as Gopinathpur sand quarry, in the Brahmani river under Talcher tehsil.
The tribunal noted that the respondents had initially appeared through state counsel, but none had been represented on the last few dates of hearing.
The eight respondents were granted one final opportunity to file their responses within one month and directed to deposit the fine amounts with the tribunal’s registrar in Kolkata within the same period. The district collector of Angul was spared the fine as the tehsildar appeared on his behalf through video conference. Advocates Sankar Prasad Pani and Ashutosh Padhy appeared for the petitioner. The matter has been posted for further hearing on December 4.
The tribunal made it clear that proceedings before it could not be treated like ordinary adversarial litigation, where a party could choose to remain absent and face ex-parte proceedings. “The proceedings before this Tribunal cannot be treated as part of adversarial litigation where the concerned defendants may opt out to remain absent and suffer ex-parte proceedings,” the bench said.
The bench also recorded that Odisha and some of its instrumentalities were “not generally appearing before this Tribunal” and were failing to file replies despite service of notices.
Holding that the non-appearance of counsel had caused unnecessary adjournments and delayed resolution of the case, the bench said such conduct had to be remedied through “exemplary costs”.