Months before the Tribal Affairs Ministry sought a report from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (AN&I) administration on alleged violations of forest rights in the ₹81,000-crore Great Nicobar Islands development and infrastructure project, the Ministry had told a Bench of the Calcutta High Court that it should be dropped as a party in a petition that challenged the project’s clearances on the same grounds.
The High Court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the forest clearance obtained for the project. The petitions, filed by former bureaucrat Meena Gupta, argued that provisions of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 were violated in obtaining the consent of the tribespeople to divert about 13,000 hectares of forest land required for the project.
