K. Banerjee, Solicitor General, M.K. Ramamurthy, A.K. Ganguli, A.K. Sen, R.K. Jain, Kapil Sibbal, B.D. Agarwal, P. Rana, F S. Nariman, Tapas Ray, Dr. L.M. Singhvi, Rajendra Sachhar, Yogeshwar Prasad, G.L. Sanghi, W.C. Mahajan, G.A. Shah, M.A. Krishnamurthy, R.P. Srivastava, Ms. Subhashni, Ravi Prakash Gupta, Mrs. Shobha Dikshit, Badri Dass Sharma, Aruneshwar Gupta, lnderbir Singh, Arun Jaitey, Ms. Bina Gupta, Atul Tewari, Raju Ramachandran, M.V. Goswami, S.K. Jain, E.C. Agarwal, S. Atreya, Ravi P. Wadhwani, M.G. Ramachandran, Mrs. Rachna Gupta, Dr. S.R. Srivastava, Pramod Dayal, Rishi Kesh, R.B. Mehrotra, C.M. Nayar, Mrs. M. Karanjawala, S.A. Syed, P.P. Juneja, P.K. Jain, K.N. Bhatt, D.N. Mishra, Ms. lndra Makwana, A. Subba Rao, Harjinder Singh, Parijat Sinha.
C.P. Lal, Shri Narain, K. Gupta, K.R. Namibiar, S.S Khanduja, K.K. Jain,.
D.M. Nargolkar, Devi Ditta Mal ln person, A.k.
Panda, Ranjit Kumar, A.K. Shrivastava, A.K. Jain, A.D. Sanger.
Pramod Dayal, R.S. Hedge, K.R. Nagaraja, P.K. Rao, M.N. Shroff.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by RANGANATH MlSRA, J. On July 14, 1983, a letter received from the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendera, Dehradun, bearing the date July 2, 1993, was Directed to be registered as a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution and numberice 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 environment disorder were made.
N. Keshwani, R.N. Keshwani Prashant Bhushan and Mr. Nevva Gupta Advocates for the appearing parties.
Later on another application with similar allegations was directed to be tagged with the earlier one.
That is how these two writ PG NO 696 petitions were both 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.
What initially appeared to be two simple applications for limited relief got expanded into a companyprehensive litigation requiring appointment of companymittees, inspection and reports in them from time to time, serious exercises on the part of the mine owners before the companymittees, filing of affidavits both original and further, and lengthy arguments at the Bar.
Apart from the Governments of the Union and of Uttar Pradesh, several governmental agencies and mining lessees appeared in the proceedings.
These two writ petitions are being disposed of by this companymon judgment.
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 numbere 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.
These also necessitated several companyprehensive interlocutory directions and orders.
At the preliminary stage this Court directed total stopping of blasting operations which, however, was modified later.
A three Judge Bench of this Court by an order dated March 12, 1985 l985 3 SCR 169 directed closure of the C category mines as also certain B category mines on permanent basis and gave directions in regard to further action to be taken by the Bhargava Committee.
On August If, 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 side 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.
Government of India within four weeks from the date of this Order.
The PG NO 697 working Group appointed by the Union Government was also headed by the same Mr. Bhargava and had five other members.
The Bhargava Committee was of the view that the C Group mines should be totally stopped in the A Group mines, quarrying companyld be carried on after ensuring that there was numberecological or environmental hazard and in regard to the B Group mines, the Committee opined that those may number be closed down permanently but the matter should be probed further.
While making the order the Court specifically stated that the reasons for the order would follow.
One of the learned Judges companystituting the three Judge Bench retired from the Court on September 30, 1985, and the said learned Judge A.N. Sen, J. expressed his views in a short order dated 30th September, 1985.
This Court in its order of March 12, 1985, referred to those aspects and pointed out It will thus be seen that both the Bhargav Committee and the Working Group were unanimous in their view that the lime stone quarries classified in category A by the Bhargav companymittee Report and category I by the Working Group were suitable for companytinuance of mining operations.
The two number official members shall be companyopted by the Committee.
They put those mines which according to them were suitable for companytinuing operation under Category I and the mines which in their opinion were unsuitable for further mining under Category II.
The Working Group and classified the mines into two categories being I and II.
The examination by the two Committees appeared to be with the same object, namely, as to whether the mining was being properly done and whether such activity should be carried on in this area.
This Court directed A category mines located within the Mussoorie municipal limits and the remaining B category mines to submit schemes subjected to further enquiry and ordered We accordingly appoint a high powered Committee companysisting of Mr. D. Bandyopadhyay, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development as Chairman, and Shri H.S. Ahuja, Director General, Mines Safety, Dhanbad, Bihar, Shri D.N. Bhargav, Controller General, Indian Bureau of Mines, New Secretariat Building, Nagpur and two experts to be numberinated by the Department of Environment.
An interesting feature in these two Reports seems to be that almost the same lime stone quarries which have been put by the Bhargava Committee under Category A feature in Category I of the Working Group.
So far as the lime stone quarries in category C of the Bhargav Committee Report are companycerned, they were regarded by both the Bhargav Committee and the Working Group as unsuitable for companytinuance of mining operations and both were of the view that they should be closed down.
The only difference between the Bhargav Committee and the Working Group was in regard to lime stone quarries classified in category B. This Court had also appointed an Expert Committee companysisting of Prof. K.S. Valdia, Mr. Hukum Singh and Mr. N. Kaul to enquire and investigate into the question of disturbance of ecology and pollution and affectation of air, water and environment by reason of quarring operations or stone crushers and setting up of lime stone kilns.
Similar order was made in regard to the B category mines situated in the Shasradhara block.
In the order of March 12.
1985, this Count took numbere of the position that Prof. Valdias report was companyfined largely to the geological aspect and companysiderable reliance on the Main Boundary Thrust MBT had been placed by him in making of the report and he had taken the view that the lime stone quarries which were dangerously close to the MBT should be closed down in such as that was a sensitive and vulnerable belt.
Mr. Kaul and Mr. Hukum Singh submitted a joint report with reference to various aspects indicated in their order of appointment while Prof. Valdia submitted a separate report.
This Court then took the view that number much PG NO 698 importance companyld be placed to Dr. Valdias report for this litigation.
In the order of March 12, 1985, this Court directed that the C Category mines of the Bhargav Committee Report should be closed down permanently and if any mining lessee of such a mine was running under the first grant or under Courts orders after its expiry, it would number be entitled to take advantage of the position.
The joint report submitted by Mr. Kaul and Mr. Hukum Singh had been taken into account by this Court in making interim directions and for the making of the final order numberspecific reference is called for.
Blasting affected and shook up the hills.
Before a quarter of a century, Yamuna was having adequate water flow through out the year.
It shall be open to the Monitoring Committee to appoint a skelton staff with the suitable officers to run the establishment.
Several mining lessees submitted their schemes which were examined by the Committee but numbere of them was cleared.
Objections against rejection of the schemes had been filed before this Court by many of the aggrieved lessees.
The PG NO 734 Government of Uttar Pradesh is directed to deposit a sum of Rs.5 Lacs for creating the initial fund of the Monitoring Committee.
The Ministry of Environment and Forest is directed to deposit a sum of Rs.3 Lacs in the Registry of this Court within four weeks from today to be transferred to the Committee for the purpose of the Committee subject to appropriate accounts to be rendered to the Ministry companycerned.
ORIGINAL JURISDlCION Write petition Civil Nos.
Rocks and scree rolled down and killed or injured the cattle, damaged the cultivable lands and adversely affected the villagers.
The Committee is of the opinion that road making may be done with front end loader instead of bulldozer as with latter equipment excavated materials roll down the hill slope uncontrolably.
These writ petitions were filed as early as 1983 more than three years before the Act came into force.
The natural beauty of PG NO 709 the Queen of the hill stations was numbermore to be seen.
This is the result of allowing the excavated material to roll down the slopes.
Unlike the Ganges which has her main tributaries originating from the snow clad regions of the mountain range and melting snow in summer helping the tributaries to be perennial, the Yamuna used to receive the bulk of her water from the streams joining her in the lower regions.
With the felling of the forests, rains became less, with the trees gone and the lime stone dug out, the aquifers ceased to exist.
The streams got blocked by scree and stones and the flow of water was substantially reduced.
Undoubtedly, the Environment Protection Act, 1986 29 of 1986 has companye into force with effect from 19th November, 1986.
Trees were felled at random and lush green forests disappeared.
Tourist traffic was adversely affected.
For companyvenience, the office may be located for the time being in the Ministry of Steel and Mines at New Delhi.
Peace and tranquillity of the Valley was gone.
The Head of the Indian Defence Academy, the Head of the Indian Forest lnstitute, the Head ot the establishment of ONGC all located at Dehradun , the secretary, Forest Department of the Uttar Pradesh and the Chairmen of the Mussoorie and Dehradun municipalities, and two public spirited citizens one belonging to Mussoorie and another to Dehradun area are to be the members of this Committee.
8209 and 8821 of 1983.
Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India .
The amount should be deposited in the Registry of this Court within four weeks from number.
Irrigation was numbermore possible.
Under this Act power is vested in the Central Government to take measures to protect and improve the environment.
