NGT’s Rs 100 cr fine: No relief for TN govt as HC rejects plea

“As per Section 22 of the NGT Act, 2010, the jurisdiction of this court has been impliedly excluded by inclusion of the words ‘Supreme Court’ and therefore the writ petition filed before this court is not maintainable,” said a division bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice C Saravanan.

Because of that, the bench said it was not inclined to go into the merits or otherwise of the contention raised in the writ petition.

While passing orders on a plea moved by social activist Jawaharlal Shanmugam about the pathetic condition of the canals owing to alleged government apathy, the NGT had on February 13 slapped a fine of Rs 100 crore for the inordinate delay in the removal of encroachments and prevention of pollution in Adyar and Cooum rivers.

The green panel noted that out of the total 26,300 encroachments, only 408 have been evicted, with the remaining 25, 892 encroachments yet to be dealt with.

Aggrieved by the fine, the State moved the High Court. When the plea was taken up for hearing on April 9, the court granted an interim stay on the operation of the order. However, it was made clear that the question of maintainability of the writ petition would be gone into at the time of disposal of the writ petition.

Appearing for the State, Advocate General Vijay Narayanan had contended that it was not mandatory to file an appeal against the order passed by the NGT at the Supreme Court, and added that the power of judicial review of the High Court provided under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot be taken away. He had also submitted that the tribunal failed to offer adequate opportunity to the government in the original application.

However, the bench was not convinced by the arguments. “Even assuming that the tribunal did not consider the various records filed on behalf of the State, including the status reports, it will not be a ground for us to entertain this petition when the records produced before us show that the tribunal, before passing the order on February 13, has afforded sufficient and adequate opportunity to parties to the original application to put forth their submissions.”

The bench held that the order dated February 13 was not passed in violation of the principles of natural justice and rejected the argument advanced by the Advocate General.