NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed an order of the Madras High Court which had put on hold a press communique issued by the Centre inviting suggestions on the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023, in either English or Hindi.
The stay was lifted by the vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Pankaj Mithal after the centre assured the Lok Sabha secretariat would publish the Tamil version of the bill by Monday, and the persons would be granted seven days to submit their objections/ suggestions.
Urging the bench to stay the high court’s order, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that HC could not interfere in the legislative process. The Union government had challenged HC’s May 24 order in which the court slammed the Centre for only publishing the bill or inviting suggestions in Hindi and English saying,
Meanwhile, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday closed a petition filed by the Lok Sabha secretariat to vacate an interim order passed by the vacation bench of the court staying all further proceedings on the communique issued by the central government.
The interim order was passed on a petition filed by an advocate, G Theeran alias Thirumurugan of Ramanathapuram. Following this, the secretariat moved a petition in the HC Bench on Thursday to vacate the stay order. But when the case was taken up for hearing by a bench of justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri, the government counsel informed the court the SC has lifted the stay.
(With inputs from Madurai)