The Supreme Court on Wednesday disposed of the writ petition lodged before the Kerala High Court against a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order after the same was upheld by the top court earlier.
The decision was passed after Senior Advocate R Basant, representing the Kerala government, informed the apex court that the state was withdrawing the writ petition from the High Court. The bench comprising Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan had earlier taken a strong exception against the state for filing such a petition in the first place and verbally asked Kerala to set its house in order.
The present plea before the Supreme Court was lodged by Advocate Yeshwanth Shenoy, who is the president of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association. In this case, the NGT, Southern Zone Bench had passed an order declaring as illegal the mining operations done by a granite quarry operator named M/s Cochin Granites. This decision was affirmed by the top court. Nonetheless, subsequently, the Kerala High Court stayed the very same NGT order in a writ petition filed by the State of Kerala.
During the proceedings, Advocate Shenoy raised allegations against the law officer who filed the writ petition, the Advocate General, and the judges. Previous week, the court gave him a last opportunity to withdraw these allegations and warned him that it would, otherwise, initiate action against him as well. The Court was informed on Wednesday that he has filed an affidavit unconditionally withdrawing those allegations. The same was accepted by the Court.
Considering this, the Court ordered that the Senior counsel appearing for the State of Kerala said that the first respondent will withdraw writ petition, and will file a statutory appeal before this Court. It further observed that it is true that the petitioner who is the member of the bar and president of the High Court bar association had made very serious allegations not only against the law officers of the state including advocate general, members of the bar and the judges.
Additionally, an affidavit has been filed by the petitioner dated May 10, 2024, where the court accepted the statement made in the affidavit as unconditional withdrawal by the petitioner of all the allegations made. It noted that as the State is withdrawing the petition, all interim orders passed by the High Court will come to an end.
Subsequently, the court disposed off the petition.