TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal on Friday fixed the final arguments on a complaint of the Village Panchayat of Navelim, Bicholim against Sesa Goa and State Pollution Control Board here on January 15.
Its four-member principal bench headed by Justice U D Salvi heard the parties and took the respondents’ replies on record. Noting that the parties have admitted completion of their pleadings, the bench sought all relevant records on the next day of hearing on January 15 while ordering to “list the matter for final arguments” on that day.
The case is against the Goa government permitting Sesa Goa to set up a pig iron plant in the vicinity of the village, challenged by its panchayat. The expert members on the Bench are Dr D K Agrawal, Dr R C Trivedi and B S Sajwan.
Meanwhile, the western zone bench of the tribunal, sitting at Pune, on Friday decided to club half a dozen applications, four of them by the Goa Foundation alone, on violation of the Forest Conservation Act to deal with the bunch of matters together and fixed the next hearing on January 8.
The two-member bench of Justice V R Kingaonkar and Dr Ajay Deshpande also ordered issue of notices returnable on or prior to January 8 in all cases and so clubbed the other applicants besides Goa Foundation. The Goa government and Goa Conservator of Forest are respondents in these cases. One of the cases of Goa Foundation also lists Mormugao Planning and Department Authority as one of the respondents.
Meanwhile, George Barreto and Lalita Sham Kamat, whose applications also came up before the Pune bench on Friday, did not turn up. The bench ordered issue of fresh notices to them as also to their counsels who represented them in the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court.
Notices are returnable on or prior to January 10 for taking up the hearing on that day. The bench also passed the order requesting the registrar of the Goa Bench of the High Court to place on notice board the information regarding transfer of the two matters to the NBT’s Pune bench from Delhi and notify the parties to appear before it on January 10.
