Supreme Court Leaves Great Nicobar Project Petitions To Calcutta High Court

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with proceedings before the Calcutta High Court challenging the Great Nicobar development project, leaving the High Court to hear the petitions and the Centre’s objections to their maintainability.

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A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana noted that the High Court had already listed the lead matter for final hearing on November 25 and 26. The Supreme Court asked the High Court to complete pleadings in the connected cases and make an endeavour to hear them on those dates, Live Law and Bar & Bench report.

High Court gets the final say

“That being so, let the High Court take necessary steps to complete pleadings in the other matters and make endeavour to hear [them] on the date fixed,” the Supreme Court ordered. Both sides assured the court of their full cooperation.

The Centre had approached the Supreme Court after the Calcutta High Court rejected its preliminary objection to petitions challenging government actions connected with the project. The Centre had questioned the locus standi, or legal standing, of one of the petitioners, retired IAS officer Meena Gupta, who is a resident of Hyderabad and not the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Attorney General for India R Venkataramani told the Supreme Court that the question of maintainability went to the root of the dispute. He argued that the environmental clearance had already been challenged before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and raised concerns about multiple proceedings over the project.

“Somebody comes and files a petition years later, and then three different petitions try to challenge it in three different ways. Then they say the tribals are affected and they are not before the Court. Now they have got impleaded,” Venkataramani submitted.

He urged the Supreme Court not to close the door on the Centre’s objections. “I just want to keep the door open,” he said.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati also referred to the NGT proceedings concerning the environmental clearance. She eventually told the Supreme Court, “Let all the matters be decided.”

Tribal rights at heart of dispute

Senior Advocate S Muralidhar, appearing for the respondents, argued that the dispute involved Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and that the Tribal Council had itself applied to be impleaded in the proceedings.

Muralidhar also pointed out that the Centre’s counsel had earlier sought a final hearing before the High Court. “Thrice they took time, and at the last hearing two ASGs appeared and asked the Court to fix it for final hearing,” he said.

He told the court that the two principal tribal communities concerned, the Shompen and Great Nicobarese, had not been heard earlier.

Justice Bagchi said questions of public interest would have to remain open and highlighted the larger issue of protecting tribal identity and culture.

Referring to demographic changes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Justice Bagchi observed that the Great Andamanese had become integrated with the wider population and raised the question of whether the same should happen to the Shompen.

“Do they become integrated completely with the mainstream, or do we keep them with their unique identity and the identity of their culture? Preservation of culture is a constitutionally protected fundamental right,” he said.

Venkataramani responded that the Centre was not referring to vulnerable tribes in its submissions but to people who had become integrated with the mainstream.

The exchange highlights the difficult balance at the centre of the litigation: the government’s push for a project it considers strategically important on one side, and questions over environmental safeguards and the constitutional protection of indigenous communities on the other. The Supreme Court has, for now, chosen not to settle that contest itself and has allowed the High Court proceedings to run their course.

What is the Great Nicobar project?

The Great Nicobar project is a large infrastructure plan estimated to cost ₹72,000 crore. It includes an international container transhipment terminal with a capacity of 14.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units, a greenfield international airport designed for 4,000 peak-hour passengers, a 450 MVA gas-solar power plant and a planned township.

The petitions before the Calcutta High Court challenge various government actions linked to the project, alleging environmental concerns and violations of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. They also raise concerns over the reduction of eco-sensitive buffer zones around national parks.

The dispute is therefore about more than whether a particular petitioner has the legal standing to approach the court. At stake is also the extent to which a project described by the Centre as being of “great national importance” can be scrutinised over alleged violations of environmental and tribal rights.

Why Centre questioned the PILs

On May 6, the Calcutta High Court upheld the maintainability of the public interest litigations (PILs). The Centre had argued that Gupta lacked locus standi because she was a permanent resident of Hyderabad and had no direct cause of action in the islands.

It also argued that the project involved infrastructure of national importance, including a port, airport, power station and defence facilities, and that the tribal communities whose interests the petitions sought to protect were not initially parties to the proceedings. The Centre further contended that the State’s sovereign right to execute strategic projects should prevail.

The High Court, however, held that there could be “no thumb rule” on locus standi in PILs and said courts could allow genuine public causes involving vulnerable communities to be raised by people who were not themselves directly affected.

The High Court also considered Gupta’s stated association with tribal welfare and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. According to her pleadings, she had served as Secretary in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, participated in the finalisation of the Forest Rights Bill before it became law and played a role in replacing the expression “Primitive Tribal Groups” with “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups”. She also said she had spent part of her childhood in the islands and had closely followed issues involving tribal rights in Great Nicobar.

National importance versus judicial scrutiny

In rejecting the Centre’s preliminary objection, the High Court relied on Supreme Court judgments concerning PILs and access to justice for disadvantaged communities.

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It also rejected the Centre’s reliance on an earlier Calcutta High Court decision dismissing a PIL filed by Delhi-based petitioners against West Bengal’s sand policy. The High Court said that ruling could not be applied “in a mechanical manner” because Gupta had demonstrated a substantial and longstanding connection with the issues involved in the Great Nicobar case.

Crucially, the High Court held that the scale or national importance of a project did not place it beyond judicial scrutiny.

“A project involving huge expenditure must proceed in accordance with governing laws holding the field and it is not beyond the scope of judicial review on permissible parameters,” the High Court said.

The Centre then approached the Supreme Court against that ruling. With the Supreme Court declining to intervene at this stage, attention will now return to the Calcutta High Court, where the hearings scheduled for November 25 and 26 could determine how the legal challenge to one of India’s most ambitious island infrastructure projects proceeds.

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