Summary
On an application alleging encroachment and pollution of the Teliya Talab, a lake at Mandsaur, the National Green Tribunal, relying on a revenue trace map, barred construction within the lake's maximum water line, summarily dismissed review petitions by unheard landowners and later ordered fresh demarcation. A housing society whose title had been upheld in a suit against the State up to the Supreme Court, and other developers, appealed. The Supreme Court allowed the appeals: the Tribunal, bound by natural justice, should have impleaded or notified those affected; it ignored the sanctioned 2003 Development Plan and the fact, since confirmed, that the map was only a proposal; and it could not disregard a decree that had attained finality. The society's rights were protected and the boundary question was remitted to the Tribunal after a committee report.
Issues
- Whether the National Green Tribunal could pass orders prohibiting construction around a water body on the basis of an unverified trace map without hearing or notifying the landowners likely to be affected.
- Whether the Tribunal could disregard a civil court decree, affirmed up to the Supreme Court, holding that the housing society's land did not fall within the submergence area of the lake.
Provisions considered
- Section 19, National Green Tribunal Act, 2010Though not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure or the Evidence Act, the Tribunal is guided by principles of natural justice and wields wide civil court powers; it was therefore obliged to implead or at least issue public notice to those whose sanctioned developments would be rendered out of bounds by its orders. (¶¶ 16, 17, 18)
- Section 22, National Green Tribunal Act, 2010Appeals to the Supreme Court against the Tribunal's main, review and subsequent orders; all allowed. (¶¶ 2, 25)
Held
- The Tribunal proceeded on the pleadings and a trace map without seeking particulars of parties likely to be affected, condemning unheard all those who held sanctions from the municipal council and the Town and Country Planning Department; its summary rejection of the review petitions showed no application of mind to the sanctioned Development Plan, the green belt and road beyond which the plots lay, or the society's prior litigation, and the council has since shown that the map was merely a 2002 proposal to raise the lake's full tank level by one foot. (¶¶ 12, 16, 18, 19, 24)
- Following Pradeep Kumar Maskara, Lekh Raj and Ibrahimpatnam Taluk Vyavasaya Coolie Sangham, a decree of a competent court affirmed concurrently up to the highest court binds the State and its agencies, and certainty of rights over immovable property must have sanctity; the society's land in the disputed survey number was directly in issue in a suit the State lost, and the Tribunal could not reopen that question without any known process. (¶¶ 20, 21, 22, 23)
- Since the revenue inquiry has revealed the map to be a proposal and a fresh application on the lake's boundaries is pending before the Tribunal, the other appeals are also allowed and the Tribunal is to determine the precise boundaries afresh on the report of a committee of officers from the Revenue Department, the Town and Country Planning Department, the municipal council and the Water Resources Department, after hearing the appellants. (¶¶ 24, 25)
Result
Appeals allowed; the society's rights, title and interest in its land, as decreed by the Civil Judge, Mandsaur on 24.12.1994 and confirmed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court on 23.06.2011, not to be disturbed; in the other appeals the National Green Tribunal directed to decide the precise boundaries of the Teliya Talab in pending O.A. No. 70 of 2022 after considering the report of a committee of nominated officers of the Revenue, Town and Country Planning, municipal and Water Resources authorities and hearing the appellants; pending applications disposed of; no order as to costs.