The Hindu
Mangalore, Dec 13: Mangalore Special Economic Zone (MSEZ) Ltd. filed a caveat recently, under the civil procedure code before the Karnataka High Court. A caveat is a legal notice to a court or public officer to suspend certain proceedings until the party which has served the notice is given a hearing.
In the caveat, MSEZ has named six civil rights organisations which have been agitating against the acquisition of land for the project. The company has expressed anxiety that these parties will jointly file writ petitions before the court against the proceedings of the environmental public hearing for the project which was held on November 28.
The organisations that have been named in the caveat are — Krishi Bhoomi Samrakshana Samiti (KBSS), SEZ Impact Assessment Committee, Movement for Social Life and Human Rights-Karnataka State, Citizens’ Forum for Mangalore Development, Parisarasaktara Okkuta and Environment Support Group.
Further, the company has requested the court to give it a fair hearing before acting upon any writ petition issued by the six organisations.
Led by Leo Saldanha of the Environment Support Group, most of the organisations mentioned in the caveat had claimed that the public hearing was being conducted illegally, and threatened to take the matter to court.
The organisations had also alleged in the meeting that the MSEZ, in collusion with the district administration, had intentionally violated several legal procedures.
Madhukar Ameen, president of the KBSS, dismissed the caveat as ineffective. He said, “The caveat mentions only six organisations. There are thousands of people in the region who are opposed to the project. Any individual can file a writ petition.”
He said that KBSS was going to file a petition anyway and claimed that they had sufficient grounds to challenge the activities of the district administration and MSEZ during the public hearing.
Leaders of the organisations mentioned in the caveat said that they were not planning to move the court with regard to the public hearing.