Supreme Court Disposes Of Kerala Govt's Petition Filed Before HC Against NGT Order As Withdrawn, Gives Liberty To File Appeal

The order was passed after Senior Advocate R Basant, appearing for the State, informed the Court that the state was withdrawing the writ petition from the High Court.

Previously, the Bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan took a strong exception against the State for filing such a petition in the first place and orally asked the State to set its house in order.

The present petition before the Supreme Court was filed by Advocate Yeshwanth Shenoy, who is currently the president of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association. It was his case that 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 order was affirmed by the Supreme Court. However, subsequently, the Kerala High Court stayed the very same NGT order in a writ petition filed by the State of Kerala.

During the course of pleading and in affidavits, Shenoy raised allegations against the law officer who filed the writ petition, the Advocate General, and the judges.

Last week, the Court gave him a last opportunity to withdraw these allegations. The Court warned him that it would, otherwise, initiate action against him as well.

Today, the Court was informed that he has filed an affidavit unconditionally withdrawing those allegations. The same was accepted by the Court.

In view of this, the Court passed the following order:

“Ld. Senior counsel appearing for the State of Kerela states that the first respondent will withdraw writ petition…and will file a statutory appeal before this Court.

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. An affidavit has been filed by the petitioner dated 10 May, 2024….we accept the statement made in the affidavit as unconditional withdrawal by the petitioner of all the allegations made….

As State is withdrawing the petition, obviously, all interim order passed by the High Court will come to an end. Accordingly, we disposed off the SLP by passing the following orders:

a. Writ petition…filed by the first respondent before the High Court of Kerela is disposed of as withdrawn;

b. It will be open for the first respondent to prefer a statutory appeal against the order which was impugned before the High Court

c. As far as the appeal…we leave open all rights and contentions of the parties which will be gone into as and when such appeal is filed.

d. We accept the statement made in paragraph 1 of the affidavit dated 10 May filed by the petitioner and take the statements on record…SLP is disposed off accordingly.”

Case Title: Yeshwanth Shenoy vs State of Kerala | SLP(C) No. 5563/2023