Judgments must be enforced unless overturned; authorities are required to follow judicial directives if all conditions for permits have been met.

JUDGMENT

The above contempt of court case has been filed, alleging non-

compliance of the directions and orders passed by this Court, as per Annexure-A1 judgment dated 27.05.2020 rendered by this Court in W.P(C) No.5897/2020 filed by the petitioner herein.

2. Heard both sides. This Court has passed various orders in this case on various occasions. The order dated 24.03.2023 passed by this Court in this contempt case reads as follows :

“The parties have been heard in extenso.

2. The petitioner's counsel will give a copy of the memorandum of this contempt case to Sri.M.P. Sreekrishnan, the learned counsel appearing for the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), Kerala. The SEIAA will immediately give precise and cogent factual instructions to their learned Standing Counsel, as to whether Anx.A5 is only a conditional Environmental Clearance or whether Environmental Clearance is granted to him, with general and special conditions thereto and as to whether the special conditions, appended as per condition Nos.3, 6, 10 to 24 given in para 9 on internal pages 6 to 9 of Anx.A5 Environmental Clearance proceedings dated 28.10.2022, need be actually complied with by the applicant, just before he has to start the mining and quarrying activities. This we say so, as the specific plea raised by the petitioner herein is that the aforesaid conditions in para 9 of Anx.A5 are only special conditions apart from the other general conditions and that Anx.A5 is the grant of the Environmental Clearance and that the Environmental Clearance is not a conditional Environmental Clearance, but that Environmental Clearance has been granted, subject to the petitioner complying with the general and special conditions and in case the petitioner does not comply with the special or general conditions, then the competent authority is entitled to take adverse action against the petitioner, subject, of course, for observing minimal principles of fairness and natural justice.

2. Prima facie, the abovesaid plea of the petitioner appears to be tenable, as Anx.A5 cannot be said to be a conditional Environmental Clearance and what is involved in Anx.A5 is the grant of the Environmental Clearance and some of the special conditions, depending upon the nature of the same, will have to be complied with by the petitioner before the actual commencement of mining and quarrying activity.

3. Further, this contempt case discloses the sad and tragic story of a litigant, who is constrained either to initiate or face litigations, atleast 17 in number, before various courts and fora, including the Single Bench of this Court, the Division Bench of this Court, the National Green Tribunal, the Apex Court, etc.

4. He won the litigation initiated by him in the celebrated case of Tomy Thomas v. State of Kerala [2019 (3) KLT 987 (FB)], rendered by the Full Bench as early as on 30.08.1997.

5. After answering the reference, the matter was remitted to the Single Bench and the Single Bench gave a verdict directing the SEIAA to finalise the stop memo proceedings.

6. It has to be borne in mind that the petitioner has secured almost all the clearances from various authorities, including the Mining and Geology Department under the Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules, the Explosives Rules, etc., and even the Environmental Clearance from the SEIAA and the Panchayat was consistently refusing to grant him the formal licence under Secs.232 & 233 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act. The Full Bench has categorically laid down the position of law that after the amendment made to those provisions of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, the Panchayat has no discretion to refuse the grant of the licence/permission, both for the trade license and the establishment permit and in a case where the applicant secures all the valid permits and licences, then the Panchayat authority is obliged to grant the abovesaid permissions but it will be within their province of the competent authority to ensure the enforcemen