Registry of Gauhati HC sends incomplete petition leading to the postponement despite request for early listing on the “urgent matter.”
In what has been presented as a mistake by the Registry of Gauhati High Court, the bench comprising Chief Justice Ajai Lamba and Justice Soumitra Saikia, on 22nd June, deferred the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that was filed against various departments of the central and state governments as well as Oil India Limited (OIL), reported PTI.
The PIL was filed against the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for awarding environmental clearance to OIL for drilling and testing of hydrocarbons at the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park by amending norms.
The confusion occurred as the Registry did not send the full petition of 268 pages that was jointly filed by advocate Mrinmoy Khataniar and mountaineer Amar Jyoti Deka. Rather, a substitute file of only 78 pages was mistakenly sent.
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Counsel Dabajit Kumar Das said, “The confusion probably occurred due to filing of an application for early listing.”
The bench initially ordered to re-file the petition but the order was later revoked when the mistake was found. Although the lawyers of the applicants requested the bench to hear the case given that the fault was of the Registry of the court and not of the petitioners, the bench did not heed to their request but postponed the date of hearing to 13th July.
Rakhee Sirauthia Chowdhury, advocate of the petitioners, talking to G Plus said, “We filed the PIL on 15th June. There is a 3-day quarantine period followed by the court when the petitions are not listed. On 16th June, we filed another application asking the case to be listed early as it is an urgent matter. They, however, listed it after 7 days on 22nd June. And even then, rather than sending the original file, a Xerox copy was made of the first 78 pages only. The original file should have been sent. I cannot comment on why a Xerox copy or a new print was made or how the mistake occurred.”
The petition challenged the amendment of rules by the central ministry on public hearing, changing the categories of all onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration projects and also pointed out the threats of such drillings on the biodiversity-rich area.
It read, “The entire action of the authorities in bringing in the amendment...smacks of malice in fact and malice in law and is clearly reflective of an abuse of powers as vested in governmental authorities, besides being violation of the various protections under the Constitution of India [sic].”
