RURAL LITIGATION AND ENTITLEMENT KENDRA Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 14/07/1983, a letter received from the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendera, Dehradun, bearing the date 2/07/1983, was directed to be registered as a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution and notice was ordered to the State of Uttar Pradesh and the Collector of Dehradun. Allegations of unauthorised and illegal mining in the Mussoorie - Dehradun belt which adversely affected the ecology of the area and led to environmental disorder were made. Later on another application with similar allegations was directed to be tagged with the earlier one. That is how these two writ petitions were born in the registry of this Court in a very innocuous manner as public interest litigation. The number of parties inflated both under the orders of the Court and on application to be added. Apart from the Governments of the Union and of Uttar Pradesh, several governmental agencies and mining lessees appeared in the proceedings. What initially appeared to be two simple applications for limited relief got expanded into a comprehensive litigation requiring appointment of committees, inspection and reports in them from time to time, serious exercises on the part of the mine owners before the committees, filing of affidavits both original and further, and lengthy arguments at the Bar. These also necessitated several comprehensive interlocutory directions and orders. These two writ petitions are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) ON 11/08/1983. this Court appointed a Committee for inspection of the mines with a view to securing assistance in the determination as to whether safety standards laid down in the Mines Act of 1952 and the Rules made thereunder have been followed and whether there was any danger of land-slide on account of quarrying operations particularly during the rainy season, and if there was any other hazard to any individual, cattle or agricultural lands on account of carrying of the mining operations. At the preliminary stage this Court directed total stopping of blasting operations which, however, was modified later. The said Committee, referred to as the Bhargava Committee after its Chairman, classified the mines which it inspected into three groups, being A, B and C. It took note of the fact that earlier an Expert Committee known as the Working Group had been set up by the Union Government which had also inspected these mines. The Bhargava Committee was of the view that the C Group mines should be totally stopped; in the A Group mines, quarrying could be carried on after ensuring that there was no ecological or environmental hazard; and in regard to the B Group mines, the Committee opined that those may not be closed down permanently but the matter should be probed further.

(3.) THIS Court made several orders relating to specific aspects after the order of 12/03/1985 (reported in AIR 1985 SC 652). One such order was made on 30th May, 1985, (1985 (3) SCC 614) : (AIR 1985 SC 1259) another on 18th December, 1986, (1986 Suppl SCC 517): (AIR 1987 SC 359), where reasons for the order of 12/03/1985, were given, and yet another order was made on 19/10/1987 (AIR 1987 SC 2426). We shall refer to the last of these orders in a later part of this judgment. In the order of 16/12/1986, when the reasonings for the order dated 12/03/1985 were given, this Court had stated :-