The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (A&NI) administration did not achieve the mandated 50% quorum at the Gram Sabha meetings held to get consent for the Centre’s ₹92,000-crore Great Nicobar Island project. Instead, it claimed to have done so by attendance figures ranging from 2% to 15% of the population, which, it argued in the Calcutta High Court, counted as “proper quorum”.

Quorum is the minimum number of members needed in such a meeting to reach a decision. According to the rules issued by the Central government for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), a quorum at a Gram Sabha is achieved only if ‘one-half’ or 50% of the adult population of that village is in attendance, of which one-third must be women.

The administration told the High Court that three Gram Sabha meetings were held for Campbell Bay, Laxmi Nagar, and Govind Nagar Gram Panchayats, covering seven villages, within half-an-hour of each other, on August 12, 2022. It said all three meetings passed “unanimous” resolutions consenting to the project. The Campbell Bay meeting was attended by 105 people, the one in Laxmi Nagar by 163 people, and the Govind Nagar sabha had 81 people.

Compared to the population of these Gram Panchayats as per the 2011 Census, the strength of the Campbell Bay Gram Sabha was 1.83% of the total population of 5,736, that of the Laxmi Nagar Gram Sabha was 14.72% of the population of 1,107, and the attendance at the Govind Nagar Gram Sabha was 11.98% of the population of 676. Put together, 349 people (4.6%) signed off on the project at these three Gram Sabhas meant to represent seven villages, whose total population stood at 7,519 as of 2011.

The submissions were made by the administration in an affidavit to the Bench that is hearing a batch of petitions alleging that procedures under the FRA had been violated in obtaining consent for the project. The submissions came after the Central government told the High Court that it would need time to “demonstrate that consent has been taken from the tribal people”.

In the supplementary affidavit filed by an official of the Tribal Welfare Department, the A&NI administration has argued that due process was followed under the FRA to hold special Gram Sabhas, with “prior notice and proper quorum”, which passed resolutions on forest rights of the people and consented to the diversion of forest land for the project. The administration also justified its prior notice of one day for such meetings by saying that the FRA but does not prescribe any specific minimum notice period.

“It is irrelevant to say that tribal communities were excluded from the FRA process,” the administration said, because their “adequate representation” had been ensured in the Sub-Divisional Level Committee (SDLC), which had accepted the Gram Sabha resolution and recommended for clearance under the FRA. The petitions before the High Court challenge not just the Gram Sabha resolutions but also the constitution of the SDLC. 

Even as the High Court on Wednesday (May 6) took these submissions on record, Additional Solicitor General of India, Ashok Kumar Chakraborty, argued on whether the petitioner, a former Secretary to the Union Ministries of Tribal Affairs, and Environment, had the locus standi to file the Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Among the arguments challenging the maintainability of the PILs, Mr. Chakraborty asked if the petitioner had been authorised by the alleged aggrieved persons in Great Nicobar to file this PIL.

The petitioner, represented by advocate Yogeshwaran A, said that rules governing the PIL jurisdiction have no such requirement of obtaining “authorisation” from groups of people to file a litigation. Even as Mr. Chakraborty responded that the PILs should not be maintainable because of multiplicity of proceedings and a pre-existing order from the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the petitioner submitted that the issues raised before the High Court are not only distinct and different from the issue that was before the NGT, but that they were different from each other as well.

The Bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul said that the parties were heard on the “question of preliminary objections regarding locus/maintainability”, adding that an order on this would be uploaded.

Soon after the Centre’s mega-infrastructure project received Stage-I clearance in 2022, the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar, the representative body for Nicobarese villages, withdrew their consent for the project in a letter to the Union government and other authorities. However, the local administration has argued that it considered this withdrawal “procedurally untenable and devoid of legal effect” because it was not addressed to the Chairman of the District Level Committee, and it was received beyond the prescribed time limit of 60 days after the SDLC’s decision.

However, the administration added in its most recent affidavit, “The entire matter deserves to be evaluated from a long term, national and strategic perspective.”

Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which is the nodal Ministry governing the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, filed another supplementary affidavit before the High Court, once again arguing that it should not be a party to these proceedings as it was not a “necessary party” to the case given that the on-the-ground implementation of the FRA rests with State/UT governments.