Nicobar gram sabhas signed off on infra project without 50% quorum
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (A&NI) administration did not achieve the mandated 50% quorum at the gram sabha meetings held to get consent for the Centre’s ₹92,000-crore Great Nicobar Island project. Instead, it claimed to have done so by attendance figures ranging from 2% to 15% of the population, which, it argued in the Calcutta High Court, counted as “proper quorum”. The submissions were made by the administration in an affidavit to the Bench that is hearing a batch of petitions alleging that procedures under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) had been violated in obtaining consent for the project.Quorum is the minimum number of members needed in such a meeting to reach a decision. According to the rules issued by the Centre for the implementation of the FRA, a quorum at a gram sabha is achieved only if ‘one-half’ or 50% of the adult population of that village is in attendance, of which one-third must be women.
The administration submitted that meetings were held for Campbell Bay, Laxmi Nagar, and Govind Nagar gram panchayats, covering seven villages, on August 12, 2022. The Campbell Bay meeting was attended by 105 people, the one in Laxmi Nagar by 163 people, and the Govind Nagar sabha had 81 people. The administration said all three meetings passed “unanimous” resolutions consenting to the project.
Compared to the population of these gram panchayats as per the 2011 Census, the strength of the Campbell Bay meeting was 1.83% of the total population of 5,736, that of the Laxmi Nagar was 14.72% of the population of 1,107, and the attendance at the Govind Nagar meeting was 11.98% of the population of 676. Put together, 349 people (4.6%) signed off on the project at these three gram sabhas meant to represent seven villages, whose total population stood at 7,519 as of 2011.
The submissions, which were taken on record by the High Court on Wednesday, came after the Centre sought time from the court to “demonstrate that consent has been taken from the tribal people”.
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