2006 Supreme(SC) 337

2006(6) Supreme 108
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(Under Art. 32 of the Constitution of India)
Y.K.Sabharwal, CJI., Arijit Pasayat and S.H. Kapadia, JJ.
T.N.Godavarman Thirumulpad — Petitioner
versus
Union of India & Ors. — Respondents
I.A. No. 989, 1221 and 1311 In I.A. Nos. 857-858
In
Writ Petition (C) No. 202 of 1995
With
I.A. Nos. 997-998, 1128, 1187, 1282-1284, 1295, 1296, 1305, 1320-1321, 1335, 1376-1377, 1388 in WP (C) No. 202 of 1995 &
SLP (C) No. 22531 of 2003
All decided on 10-4-2006
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appearing Parties : B. Datta, A.S.G., A. Sharan, A.S.G., Harish N. Salve, (A.C.), U.U. Lalit, (A.C.), Anoop G. Chaudhary, A.M. Singhvi, Mukul Rohtagi, M.L. Verma, Ravi Shankar Prasad, R.G. Padia, Arun Jaitley, A.K. Ganguli, Altaf Ahmad, Sr. Advocates, Sidhartha Choudhary, (A.C.), P.K. Manohar, (NP) Ms. June Chaudhary, Jetendra Singh, Bharat Sangal, Dhruv Mehta, Aman Vachher, P.N. Puri, Gopal Jain, Mrs. Rakhi Ray, Ms. Bina Gupta, Ms. Inklee Barooah, Pradeep Misra, Vishwajit Singh, V. Krishna Murthy, Anirudha P. Mayee, (NP) Prashant Kumar, Satya Mitra, Rudreshwar Singh, Tapash K. Singh, Alok Kumar, Ms. Suparna Srivastava, Ms. Deepti Singh, Rajesh Srivastava, Ms. A. Subhashini, Manoj Saxena, Amit Meharia, M.P. Meharia, Kuldip Singh, R.K. Pandey, A.K. Sinha, Ajay Siwach, Sandeep Sharma, T.V. George, S. Wasim A. Qadri, J.K. Bhatia, Gopal Singh, Rituraj Biswas, S.S. Shinde, V.N. Raghupathy, Bhavanishankar V. Gandis, Mrs. Sunita B. Rao, N.M. Popli, R.N. Karanjawala, Ms. Nandini Gore, Ms. Pragya Singh Baghal, Mrs. Manik Karanjawala, K.H. Nobin Singh, Mrs. Rekha Pandey, B.K. Prasad, Brajkishore Mishra, M.D. Adkar, Avishek Singh, Vijay Kumar, Ajit Kumar Sinha, A.D.N. Rao, Ciccu Mukhopadhaya, Ms. Lovelen Bhullar, Viplav Sharma for M/s. Suresh A. Shroff & Co. P.H. Parekh, Rohit Alex, Ms. Sushma Manchanda for M/s. P.H. Parekh & Co., Ms. Binu Tamta, Aarohi Bhalla, V.K. Verma, B.B. Singh, Himanshu Shekhar, Prakash Srivastava, S.N. Terdal, Ms. Musharaff Chaudhary, B.S. Banthia, Advocates.

.IMPORTANT POINTS
1. While the Supreme Court has laid down a chain of notable decisions with all emphasis at their command about the importance and significance of newly developed doctrine of Public Interest Litigation, it has also hatened to sound a red alert and a note of severe warning that courts should not allow its process to be abused by a mere busybody or a meddlesome interloper or wayfarer or officious intervener without any interest or concern except for personal gain or private profit or other oblique consideration.
2. To determine the area covered by the forests, the technology adopted by NRSA based on ERDAS IMAGINE 8.6 is more reliable than CAD.

Headnote:(i) Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 — Sections 2(1) — Forest land — Grant of lease of forest land for non forest activities in violation of law — Land measuring about 15 hectares leased by State of Chhattisgarh to M/s Maruti Clean Coal and Power Ltd. for setting up of coal washery — Dispute raised by petitioner, claiming to be a public spirited person and journalist by profession — Applicant claiming that undue favour and patronage has been extended to Maruti Ltd. for establishment of coal washery plant — Allegations that it is forest land but shown in various revenue records as a part of another village — According to the applicant, the land in question would be forest land and it is also so under the Government record — This Court by order dated 7.5.2003 referred the application to Central Empowered Committee for its report — In its first report, CEC concluded that the land allotted to Maruti is a forest land and, therefore, prior approval of Central Government under the Act was necessary — State of Chhattisgarh and Maruti disputed that the land is part of forest — Their case that land was allotted after it was clearly established that it was not a forest land — CEC in its second report has explained the grounds and reasons for reversal of its findings as contained in the first report — Except petitioner, other parties have not questioned conclusions in the second and third report of CEC that the land in question is not a forest land — Whether application filed by petitioner is liable to be dismissed — (Yes).

       Held : At this stage, we may note that some dispute as to the title of the land in question between State Government and Maruti on one hand and M/s South East Collieries Limited (SECL) on the other is pending in a civil court. In these proceedings, we are not concerned about the title of the land that may have to be examined and decided by the civil court. All pleas, factual and legal, as permissible in law, would be open to the parties to be agitated before the civil court. The only question for our consideration in these proceedings is as to the nature of the land, namely, it is forest land or not.(Para 20)

       We have in-depth examined the three reports of CEC. The CEC in its second report has explained in detail the grounds and the reasons for reversal of its findings as contained in the first report. The first report had only considered the letter dated 17th October, 2002 of DFO, Khatghora including no objection from grampanchayat, orange area proposals of 1997-98, joint inspection report of 18th October, 2002 with enumeration lists, report of Deepak Srivastava & Mr.Negi of MoEF, Members and SECL maps. The second report, however, considers in detail several notifications of the order of October 1999, old settlement maps and the guidelines of State Government in respect of orange area proposals. It shows that non-forest land can also be included in the said proposals and various other documents and for reaching the conclusion that the land in question is not a forest land, in fact, the said land was of Nawagaon Khurd and not village Ratija and that this area was not formally merged and made part of village Ratija in the settlement (Bandobast) carried out during 1928-29. We have examined various old record from 1893-94 onwards including the old maps and find no reason to take a view different than the one taken by CEC in its second report. The conclusions reached and the recommendations made in the second report deserve to be accepted.(Para 31)

       The issue which is required to be considered is whether ERDAS IMAGINE 8.6 used by NRSA is better than CAD which is a programme used by Deepak Agarwal. We have indicated broadly the advanced features of the software, viz., ERDAS IMAGINE 8.6. On the other hand, CAD, is also a software used by engineers to view a design from an angle with the push of a button and to zoom in and zoom out for close-ups and long distance views. It helps the computer to tract designs. CAD software generally examines the boundaries and that too in a design. In the present case, we are concerned with the area covered by the forests. Therefore, the technology adopted by NRSA based on ERDAS IMAGINE 8.6 is more reliable than CAD.(Para 39)

       In short, NRSAs report submitted through FSI is reliable and we see no reason to reject it. On the basis of the said report, it can be said that AOI (area of interest) does not qualify so as to be included in the category of Deemed Forest i.e. a compact block of 10 hectares having 200 trees per hectare. (Para 45)

       In conclusion, we dismiss the applications filed by Deepak Agarwal with costs. The applicant has abused the process of law and deserves to be sternly dealt with. The enormous judicial time has been wasted which could have been used for deciding other cases. It has also resulted in CEC and others incurring huge expenses and their wastage of time as well. In this view, we quantify costs at Rs.1,00,000/- payable by the applicant Deepak Agarwal to CEC. The cost, if not deposited with CEC within four weeks, shall be executable as a decree. The amount of cost shall be utilized for preservation of forests in State of Chhattisgarh.(Para 48)

       (ii) Constitution of India — Articles 32, 226 — Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 — Section 2(i) — Public Interest Litigation — Liberal rule of locus standi exercised in favour of bona fide public interest litigants — Importance and significance of this newly developed doctrine of PIL — This Court has also hastened to sound a red alert and a note of severe warning that courts should not allow its process to be abused by a mere busybody or a meddlesome interloper without any interest or concern except for personal gain or with oblique consideration — The Supreme Court strongly deprecates the filing of an entirely misconceived and mala fide application in the garb of public interest litigation — Petition dismissed with costs of Rs. 1,00,000/-.

       Held : It has been repeatedly held by this Court that none has a right to approach the Court as a public interest litigant and that Court must be careful to see that member of the public, who approaches the Court in public interest, is acting bona fide and not for any personal gain or private profit or political motivation or other oblique considerations.(Para 24)

       For the last few years, inflow of public interest litigation has increased manifold. A considerable judicial time is spent in dealing with such cases. A person acting bona fide alone can approach the court in public interest. Such a remedy is not open to an unscrupulous person who acts, in fact, for someone else. The liberal rule of locus standi exercised in favour of bona fide public interest litigants has immensely helped the cause of justice. Such litigants have been instrumental in drawing attention of this Court and High Courts in matters of utmost importance and in securing orders and directions for many under-privileged such as, pavement dwellers, bonded labour, prisoners conditions, children, sexual harassment of girls and women, cases of communal riots, innocent killings, torture, long custody in prison without trial or in the matters of environment, illegal stone quarries, illegal mining, pollution of air and water, clean fuel, hazardous and polluting industries or preservation of forest as in the Godavarmans case. While this Court has laid down a chain of notable decisions with all emphasis at their command about the importance and significance of this newly developed doctrine of PIL, it has also hastened to sound a red alert and a note of severe warning that courts should not allow its process to be abused by a mere busybody or a meddlesome interloper or wayfarer or officious intervener without any interest or concern except for personal gain or private profit or other oblique consideration.(Para 25)

       It seems that this caution has not had the desired effect on the applicant like the present one.(Para 26)

       There is also ample material to show that K.K. Srivastava has been collecting material to prove that the land in question is forest land. He is a person in contact with Aryan. Regarding his financial status, Deepak Agarwal has filed an affidavit dated 24th August, 2005 along with which certain documents have also been filed. In the affidavit, it has been claimed by him that he is fighting the case with the help of like-minded people, well-wishers and friends. As to his own financial resources, it is stated that in the income tax return, financial help taken from friends, social workers and like-minded people has not been shown as it does not fall in the category of income. He has filed affidavits of some people from whom it is claimed that donation collectively of the sum of Rs.86,500/- was taken.(Para 29)

       It may be noted that Maruti has been pleading since beginning that Deepak Agarwal has been set up by their competitor and there was, in fact, a link between the competitors of Maruti and Deepak Agarwal in the form of K.K. Srivastava. Deepak Agarwal, in fact, denied that there was any link between him and K.K. Srivastava who appeared on his behalf before CEC and Aryan and took the stand that nothing has been submitted to prove that it was the same K.K. Srivastava who appeared on behalf of the Aryan. Regarding K.K. Srivastava being attesting witness to the sale deeds, it was pleaded that K.K. Srivastava was in a business of sale and purchase of land and in course of his business dealing, he might have come across such sale deeds. The same plea was taken in respect of proceedings before Tehsildar. Regarding the Bilaspur Environment Society, which purportedly assisted Deepak Agarwal, as admitted by him and allegedly paid Rs.55,000/- for obtaining satellite images, it may be noted that firstly, one fails to understand as to what prevented the said society from approaching this court. Secondly, a close perusal of the record throws open many questions about the credibility of the society which spent Rs.55,000/- in cash for obtaining satellite images and also obtained donations. On perusal of record, we have no doubt that the application filed by Deepak Agarwal is far from bona fide. He has been set up by others. We strongly deprecate the filing of an entirely misconceived and mala fide application in the garb of public interest litigation by Deepak Agarwal. He is nothing but a name lender.(Paras 29 & 30)