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Informist, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026

 

--SC rejects govt plea over HC OK to hear PIL against Great Nicobar Project 

--CONTEXT: PIL said Nicobar project violated consent nod in forest right law 

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Monday rejected the government's plea against a Calcutta High Court order upholding the maintainability of a public interest litigation challenging an INR-920-billion Great Nicobar Project on the grounds of not obtaining consents under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asked the high court to take necessary steps to complete pleadings on the public interest litigation and other related cases, making an endeavor to hear on the fixed dates of Nov. 25 and Nov. 26.

 

The Centre had argued that Meena Gupta, who had filed the public interest litigation in the high court, had her permanent residence of Hyderabad in Telangana and her temporary address is of Kolkata. Thus, she has no "locus standi" to file the present public interest litigation, more so when no part of cause of action troubled her while remained stationed at Hyderabad, it said.

 

The Great Nicobar Project is of great national importance and relates to ports, airports, power stations and defence infrastructure, said the government. Such a project of national importance cannot be called in question in a public interest litigation, said the government. The tribals for whom this petition is filed are not parties in this matter, said the government. The right of a sovereign to construct a project must prevail over the personal rights of its citizens, it said. Gupta has not been authorised by any tribal person to file the present petition, it added.

 

The high court had said that the background of Gupta, who was a retired civil servant, having worked in the Indian Administrative Service from 1971 to 2008, shows that she has keen interest since beginning relating Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was deeply involved with the framing of law regarding tribals of the said islands. Apart from this, Gupta has expertise on the subject and therefore, her special interest permits her to file a public interest litigation of general importance, it said. The tribal population in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a very vulnerable tribal group and they are ordinarily not accessible to common men, it said.

 

The high court had noted that Gupta had served as secretary in the Central government in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. During her stint, she was actively engaged in the finalisation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, prior to its becoming an Act. Gupta has a deep attachment to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, having spent four years on the islands as a teenager, when her father was posted there as a principal engineer of the Andaman Public Works Department and finally visiting the islands, including Great Nicobar, in 2006, when she was secretary in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, it said.

 

Gupta had argued that the Great Nicobar Project infringed upon the rights of two indigenous tribal communities —the Shompen and the Nicobarese. The indigenous communities are dependent on the island's tropical evergreen forests and coastal ecosystem for sustenance, she said. Gupta's public interest litigation concerns the implementation of the 2006 Act, gram sabhas that are likely to be affected by the project, as well as the reduction in buffer zones around national parks.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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