The Chhattisgarh High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking orders revoking the letters of consent issued by Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board (Respondent No.1) for operating the 540 MW coal based power plant and 4×300 MW coal based power plants of the Respondent No.5.
U N S Deo, counsel for the petitioner submits that respondent No.5 is not only flagrantly violating environmental norms but is also engaged in encroaching upon lands of the farmers which are in the vicinity of the already over filled Pharsabhata Red Mud Dam. The respondent No.5 is not only blatantly dumping ash in the agricultural field of farmers but also in the water bodies which are used by the villagers.
Abhishek Sinha, Senior counsel appearing for respondent No.5 would submit that the petitioner and his brother have sold their land to State Of Chhattisgarh (respondent No.3) in pursuance of tripartite settlement dated 24.09.2013, situated at Shanti Nagar, Balco, beside 1200MW Power Plant of the answering respondent, for a sum of Rs.46,43,760/- which is much higher than the prescribed and the market value of the land, vide sale deed dated 31.03.2016.
He also submits that the petitioner has suppressed the material fact that even after selling his land and having received the entire sale consideration, he has not vacated the possession and handed over the land to BALCO and, therefore, the answering respondent company was compelled to file a civil suit seeking eviction of the petitioner and his brother and vacant possession of the said land, which is pending consideration before Civil Court, Korba (C.G.). Therefore, the present petition filed by the petitioner in his individual capacity is nothing but a camouflage to foster personal dispute and gain personally. It is further submitted that similar PIL of 2022 has been filed by one Virendra Pandey for the identical issue regarding dumping of fly ash.
From the entire pleadings made in the writ petition as well as the submissions made by counsel for the petitioner, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Rajani Dubey find that there is involvement of personal interest of petitioner and as such it cannot be said that the petition is filed for the interest of public at large.
In view of above, the Bench is of the view that the grievance projected by the petitioner in the writ petition is not the grievance for ‘public interest’, therefore, the petition filed in the style of ‘Public Interest Litigation’ is not maintainable and is hereby dismissed.