The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Collectors must ensure peaceful public hearings'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 26, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Collectors must ensure peaceful public hearings'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, NOV. 25. The Tuticorin Port Trust has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court seeking direction to six District Collectors to hold public hearings on the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project "in an orderly manner and to forward reports to the State and Central Governments forthwith."

The petition, along with a plea by the Coastal Action Network (CAN) seeking a stay on public hearings, has been posted to December 2.

In the petition, the TPT said a series of public hearings was completed in a "congenial and peaceful atmosphere" between September 7 and 16. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board then notified another set of public hearings from November 19 to 30 in Ramanathapuram, Tuticorin, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Pudukottai and Nagapattinam.

Though the first hearing in Ramanathapuram was conducted in an "exemplary manner" on November 19, the one at Tiruvarur on November 23 turned unruly with the Collector maintaining a "stoic silence and being a mute spectator."

The Collector was duty-bound to discharge his statutory functions, conducting hearings in an orderly manner and must ensure that the minutes were sent to the TNPCB, it said. Referring to the unruly scenes at Tiruvarur, the petition apprehended that the other hearings would witness similar problems, "delaying and disrupting" the project.

`Mere ritual'

The CAN petition said public hearings were "merely a ritual and will not achieve the statutory purposes for which they were made mandatory." Neither the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests nor the Tuticorin Port Trust could furnish details of the risk assessment plan, the disaster management plan, the detailed project report and the rehabilitation plan.

However, the Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Ministry, in its counter, said "there cannot be a declaration that the public meetings are ineffective and do not comply with the requirements of law." Describing the petition as "totally premature," the counter, filed by the Senior Central Government Standing Counsel, P. Wilson, said: "It has been filed only to scuttle even the initiation of proceedings for environmental impact assessment at the threshold."

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