The bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud accepted the suggestions for the interim arrangement submitted by the Central Administration Tribunal.

On June 1, 2017, the Department of Revenue, Finance Ministry, notified the Tribunals, Appellate Tribunals and other Authorities of the Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members Rules, 2017. Sabrangindia had analysed this move at length.

These rules under Section 184, Finance Act 2017 further empower the Central Government to make regulations for necessary qualifications, appointment, term of office, salary and allowances, resignation, removal and other terms and conditions of service for judges appointed to 19 tribunals functioning in India. The amendments pose an immediate threat to the already restricted independence of the tribunals.

The Supreme Court was hearing a batch of petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of the draft rules under the Finance Act, 2017, which were amended in March 2017. The amendment provides the Centre the power to govern appointments, removal and service conditions of the members. Since the amendment, there have been more delays in filling vacancies in tribunals such as the National Green Tribunal.

The bench said the appointment of the chairperson of the tribunal will be made by the chief justice or his nominee. A three-member panel comprising two government secretaries and the chairperson of the concerned tribunal will decide the appointment of other members of the tribunal, the court added.

The petitioners have claimed that the provisions violated the independence and powers of the judiciary and that the new rules will encroach upon the principle of separation of powers. After the Finance Act, 2017, was passed, the government merged eight tribunals, bringing the total number of such panels down to 19 from the earlier 26 tribunals, IANS reported.
 
 

The post SC stays Modi Govt Moves to Curb Independence of the NGT appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
The National Green Tribunal Bench west zone Pune comprises of Justice U.D. Salvi and Dr. Ajay Deshpande appointed a three member Court Commission comprising of Director MoEF with Senior Scientist of NEERI and Director of Marine National Park and Sanctuary, Jamnagar to probe and ascertain the exact area being used by the Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd. This is seen as a jolt to the big corporate like Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd.
 
The order dated May 25, 2017 says that –
 
(1) A committee comprising of Director of MoEF, Senior Scientist, NEERI and Director of Marine National Park and Sanctuary, Jamnagar is constituted to carry out local investigation at the project site of Respondent No.1 Essar Bulk Terminal (Salary) Ltd; 2.
 
(2) The Committee shall ascertain the extent of constructions going on and carried out by Respondent No.1 Essar Bulk Terminal (Salary) Ltd, particularly, soil-bund referred to in the Application, navigation route as well as location of the constructions with reference to the area of Marine National Park and Marine Sanctuary and ESZ, referred to in the Notification dated 22nd August, 2013; tidal water current and destruction of Mangroves, if any, and tidal current in and around Salaya Creek.
 
(3) The committee shall furnish its report on or before the next date of hearing on July 26, 2017.
 
(4) Logistic arrangements of the Committee-Members for the work of commission shall be made by Respondent No.2- State of Gujarat through the Collector, Jamnagar.
 
(5) Copies of the Application and record shall be furnished by the Registry, NGT (WZB) Pune to the Committee.

The plea was made on behalf of the Salaya Fishermen’s Association an application for appointment of Court Commissioner/Commission to carry out local investigation in order to ascertain the facts concerning the alleged illegal construction, soil bunds carried out by the Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd. 

The petition before the NGT alleged that Essar Bulk Terminal has encroached upon protected Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) of Salaya Marine National Park and Sanctuary resulting in the destruction of mangroves, obstruction to inter-tidal water in Salaya Creek which is harmful to environment and biodiversity. The Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd. In its reply had stated  that there has been no illegal construction made by the corporation.
 
On behalf of Salaya Fishermen’s Association,  advocate Asim Sarode submitted before the NGT that the Notification dated August 22, 2013 declared area admeasuring 326.26 sq.km. around the Salaya Marine National Park and Marine Sanctuary as ESZ of which area admeasuring 208.5818 sq.km towards landward side and 105.14 sq.km towards seaward and 12.5384 sq.km area covered by rivers; and therefore, the communication dated 28.8.2014 by CCF, Marine National Park, Jamnagar is not a complete disclosure of the facts, particularly, when Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd has not produced any lay-out or sanction-plan of the construction of the project and any details of the construction to be carried out in the project. He further submitted that a thorough,  on the spot, local investigation is necessary to answer clearly the questions raised by concerned fisherfolk.
 
The NGT,  after perusing the letter dated 28.04.2014 of CCF, Marine National Park realised that some directions were found as to the exact location of Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd. where the proposed Marine Facilities including conveyor corridor and Jetty of M/s. Essar Bulk Terminal (Salaya) Ltd. are being constructed. It is mentioned that the nearest point of Eco Sensitive Zone from the said Jetty is approximately 150 meters and the distance of 4.6 Hectare forest land diverted for this purpose is approximately 1.9 km. from the nearest point of the Marine National Park and Marine Sanctuary.
 
Given this background to the dispute raised by local fishermen's association,  the NGT  set up the Committee to get to the actual facts.

The post Three Member Inquiry Committee to look into Allegations of Incursions by Essar’s Bulk Terminal, Salaya Creek: NGT appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Air pollution caused by surat site

In a significant ruling, not just for Surat but also for Ahmedabad, the National Green Tribunal (NTG) has asked the Surat authorities in South Gujarat to take a decision and “issue work order for commencing the work of closure of Khajod open dumping site within one month”, even as start working on the action plan for scientific disposal of solid waste.

Khajod Major Cause for Pollution: Located in the coastal zone of Surat, Gujarat’s second biggest city, which has turned into a major business hub in western India, Khajod has turned into a major cause of pollution, affecting around five lakh people, says MSH Sheikh, a well-known environment expert, who has been campaigning against the site’s existence for the last several years.

Dumping municipal solid waste (MSW) on its 117 hectares (ha) site, the pollution caused by fire on it “spreads heavy air pollution in 10 km radius, causing health issues in Khajod, Budiya, Gabeni, Dipli, Jiyav and Bhimrad villages, all of whom are situated in the five kilometers of the site, Sheikh says, adding, “Vector borne diseases, over and above air pollution and foul odour, have been reported due to the mismanagement of the site.”

Solid Waste Site in Surat

According to available estimates, Surat city generates a total of 1,600 metric tonnes of solid waste per day, all of which is dumped at Khajod. A private company, which was given the contract to “handle” the solid waste, says the expert, never cared to do it in a scientific manner. The result is, as of today, more than 40 lakh metric tonnes of solid waste has gathered at the site.

Parivartan Trust, the NGO which went to the NGT against the polluting site, says, “Despite our repeated requests, neither Gujarat’s urban development department, nor the municipal corporation authorities did anything to ensure that this private company handles sold waste in a scientific way. This is one reason why we decided to approach the NGT.”

The NGT ruling comes amidst increasing concern not just in Surat but also in Ahmedabad, whose outskirts have a major dumping site with similar characteristics. Situated near Pirana village, it adversely affects lakhs of people living around the spot. Worse, set up in 1980, a 1989 Gujarat government notification had said, the dumping site should be disbanded and shifted “within 20-25 years”, which meant it should have been removed by 2005.

Ahmedabad site situated next to Bombay Hotel Transit Camp and ITDPs

 
“Yet nothing has been done for this, Insaf Foundation, a local NGO campaigning against the Ahmedabad MSW site, says. The NGO quotes an Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, study to say that there are as many as 35 poisonous gases emanating from the Pirana solid waste site. Another study by the St Xavier’s College, is quoted as saying that the pollution level around the site is twice as much as the rest of the city.

“As a result of this, the death rate among the residents of the area is much higher. Women complain of premature abortion. The water pollution because of the site has also led to higher incidence of kidney failure, acute asthma cases, heart failure, and so on”, Insaf’s Kalim Siddique, who has prepared a profile of individuals suffering from the diseases, says.
 
 

The post Close Khajod Open Dumping Site, Surat Authorities Told: NGT appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The country's top environment court, the National Green Tribunal came down forcefully today on spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, stating,  "You have no sense of responsibility. Do you think you have the liberty to say whatever you want?"

Last year, in January 2016, Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation fined Rs 120 crore for damaging Yamuna floodplains. A panel appointed by the National Green Tribunal found that the organisation had harmed the ecology around the banks of the river while making preparations for the World Culture Festival.

 
In a hearing yesterday, Sri Sri had callously said that if any damage has been caused to the environment by the huge three-day cultural festival he held on the banks of the River Yamuna in Delhi last year, it is the government and the court who should take the blame, because they allowed the event.
"If, at all, any fine has to be levied, it should be levied on the Central and state governments and the NGT itself, for giving the permission. If the Yamuna was so fragile and pure, they should have stopped the World Culture Festival," the 60-year-old, who has lakhs of followers around the world, said in a Facebook post.
 
A team of experts has testified to the National Green Tribunal that the event, which included a 7-acre stage for musicians and dancers and sprawled across 1,000 acres, had "completely destroyed" the riverbed. They said reversing the damage will take at least 10 years and about 42 crores. In January 2016, Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation fined Rs 120 crore for damaging Yamuna floodplains. A panel appointed by the National Green Tribunal found that the organisation had harmed the ecology around the banks of the river while making preparations for the World Culture Festival.

 
Sri Sri and the Art of Living Foundation, which was founded by him, have denied all allegations of damaging the fragile ecosystem of the Yamuna.
 
Environmentalists last year asked for the "World Culture Festival" to be disallowed, but the National Green Tribunal said it was too late to call off the event and fined the organization five crores. Sri Sri at the time said he should be given an award for hosting a spectacular event that drew people from across the globe to the banks of one of the world's most polluted rivers.

Showing India and the world that he cared little for the mass destruction being caused to the Yamuna, the event had opened with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on stage next to Sri Sri. Modi, in one aspect of his public marketing image likes to show at least that he is committed to the movement against climate change !!

In March last year a further controversy was generated around the issue when a Gujarat based activist, Roshan Shah alleged that “Facebook Violating Article 19, "Filtering" Content Critical of Sri Sri's AOL”. This was on March 12, 2016. Roshan Shah, an  Ahmedabad-based activist had, in a communication with the Director General of Police, Gujarat and the ACP, Cyber Crime Cell asked for registration of a first information report against Facebook for “intercepting messages” and “filtering content.” .The complaint related to the controversy afoot over days in March last year relating to the World Culture Festival where Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who runs the Art of Living Foundation receiving a Rs. 2.5 cr as a government grant, using Indian army for the construction of a bridge, and chopping off trees.

Scroll.in had in an investigative report shown how “India’s spiritual gurus are the newbie gods of consumer goods” (April 2016)
 

The post You Have No Sense of Responsibility, NGT tells Sri Sri Ravi Shankar appeared first on SabrangIndia.

(Photo Courtesy : The Hindu)

Big news – at times – go completely unnoticed.

(Thanks to the mediatised times we are passing through)

And thus it did not appear surprising that the decision by Posco, the South Korean steelmaker, the fourth biggest in the world, to exit the proposed 12 million-tonnes a year steel plant in Odisha did not cause much flutter. Yes, newspapers duly reported POSCO India’s ‘request to the Odisha government to take back the land provided to it near Paradip’ where it was supposed to invest 52,000 crore Rs.’ The letter stated company’s ‘failure to start work on the proposed plant’.

Perhaps none from the media wanted to showcase a negative example which is at variance with the efforts by the powers that be to project the idea of ‘ease of doing business’ here. Undoubtedly at a time when the government is keen to attract foreign capital and inducing it in very many ways, the way in which a Corporate Major – supposed to be one of the leading in the steel sector – had to exit from its project can easily shake their confidence about investing here. Or was it to cover up the fact that over the years how the South Korean Steel Major had dealt a heavy blow to the local environment by felling down more than eight lakh trees at the project site and residents are demanding accountability and compensation over such large scale environmental destruction.  What is more disturbing has been the fact that while the Union Environment Ministry never gave permission to cut the trees the MNC with due help from the local administration and law and order machinery went ahead with it. A case has been filed before the National Green Tribunal about this issue. (http://www.orissapost.com/residents-demand-compensation-for-rampant-tree-felling-by-posco/)
Question arises why did POSCO decide to quit despite receiving continued support from the central as well as the state government? Remember the company had been handed over 1,700 acres of land by the Odisha state for the project and around 1,000 acres of land was still lying with the state which it had acquired for the project. In fact, the Odisha government went ahead with the forcible land acquisition for the steel plant despite the fact that POSCO did not have an environmental clearance for the project. And also the environmental clearance given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on January 31, 2011 had also been suspended by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 30 March 2012.

Whether it had a ‘change of heart’ about concerns expressed by local people – who were leading and continuing with the struggle which was billed as one of the ‘largest social movements in recent times’ – about the devastation it had brought out in the lives of the people or the company decided to become ‘green’ and decided to discontinue the project.

Definitely not.

Capital or capitalists never get moved by such humanitarian concerns ( which are exhibited by lesser mortals like us). Soul of capital or capitalists rest in profit only. It is the sole criterion for it to make decisions. (As an aside if capital/capitalist would have been really ‘moved’ by human misery neither we would have seen giant armament factories manufacturing weapons of death or and human trafficking becoming ‘lucrative’ business or crores of children slogging out on peanuts).

It is now history how the proposed project witnessed resistance by masses since its inception- which was spontaneous first and which later coalesced into formation of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti – since the state government signed an MOU with POSCO in June 2005 to set up a steel plant on 4,004 acres of land in Kujang at a plan outlay of `54,000 crore. The project was then claimed as the ‘largest investment by any multinational in the country.’

The mass movement which compelled the company to scrap its project altogether – wherein people showed exemplary courage, determination and creativity was led by activists of CPI (Communist Party  of India) and other progressive formations – had to face brutal repression at the hands of the goons of the management which were in connivance with the police and administration. A statement issued by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (http://icrindia.co.in/mydirectory/2017/03/24/update-from-posco-pratirodh-sangram-samiti-ppss/) hailing the victory tells how four persons associated with the movement were martyred during the struggle and scores have been injured, how ‘several leaders of the movement have been jailed multiple times’ and how ‘more than 2000 warrants have been issued against the people and more than 400 false cases both men and women have been registered at the Kujang police station since 2005.’

Excerpt of a memorandum submitted by various organisations and individuals who had organised a protest in Delhi against killing of anti-Posco activists and forcible land grabbing makes it clear the intensity of violence perpetrated by the corporate–police-goonda nexus in the region to suppress the voice of the people. It said :
 

On 2nd March, hired musclemen of POSCO with the full complicity of Odisha Police threw bombs at anti-POSCO activists in Patana village, in which 4 activists were killed and several others were seriously injured. Out of the 4, 3 were killed as a direct consequence of the police’s refusal to arrive at the spot for 15 hours after the bombing, or arrange for an ambulance to take the injured to a hospital. ..(http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2013/03/protest-held-in-new-delhi-against_10.html)
 

And it cannot be denied the support garnered by the movement outside the affected area also proved helpful in reaching out to a large cross section of people and create a favourable public opinion. (http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2013/02/demonstration-outside-indian-embassy.html)

It is noteworthy that the victory achieved by the united struggle of peasants, fisherfolks, forest dwellers to protect their land, livelihood and environment is breath of fresh air for all fighting forces in this part of the world where one finds a strange co-existence of Corporate Interests and Religion centred exclusivist politics..

But while celebrating this victory we should also bear in mind that while Posco has quit the project the issue of land acquired and transferred to Posco still remains. Odisha’s Industry minister has told the assembly that the land will be kept in a land bank and plans are being made to fence the land. As rightly pointed out by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samity it is “illegal, undemocratic, anti-peasants, and unwarranted” and the state government “must follow the Supreme Court decision on the pattern of Singur where land of farmers acquired by Tata’s Nano plant in West Bengal was returned to them.” (http://icrindia.co.in/mydirectory/2017/03/24/update-from-posco-pratirodh-sangram-samiti-ppss/)

Another important issue is related to chopping down of thousands of tress – like mangroves, cashew nut, betel vines, fruit bearing trees – in the project area and adjoining villages. These trees had played a key role in 1999 Super Cyclone when because of the vast green cover and sand dunes, while thousands of people from nearby villages perished, people in this area remained unaffected. Now with the cutting of trees, these villages have also become vulnerable to cyclones. While substituting the natural forest looks impossible, what the government can easily do is pay compensation to these concerned villagers who remained dependent on these trees. and initiate a campaign to plant eco-friendly trees in the region.  One can be sure that people of Jagatsinghpur and adjoining areas who humbled a big corporate major with their collective efforts can as well compel the government to concede to their demands.

As rightly said by legendary revolutionary Che Guevara, people united are always victorious.

This article was first published on kafila.online
 
 

The post Victory of Anti-Posco Struggle appeared first on SabrangIndia.