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Supreme Court refuses to hold urgent hearing on Joshimath crisis
The public interest litigation (PIL), filed by Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, was mentioned before the court by advocate Parmeshwar Nath Mishra on Monday but the court asked the petitioner to get the matter listed for Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hold an urgent hearing of a plea seeking it’s intervention into the land subsidence in Uttarakhand’s Joshimath town and said it will hear the matter on January 16.
“Everything that is important in this country need not come to us. There are democratically elected institutions to see this. We will hear this (plea) on January 16,” a bench of Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justice PS Narasimha said.
The public interest litigation (PIL), filed by Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, was mentioned before the court by advocate Parmeshwar Nath Mishra on Monday but the court asked the petitioner to get the matter listed for Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the court dismissed the petitioner’s request for an urgent hearing.
In his petition filed on Saturday, Saraswati had requested the top court to declare the current incidents of landsliding, subsidence, land sinking, land burst and cracks in the land and properties as a “national disaster”, necessitating a scheme for disaster relief and rehabilitation. He also sought a directive to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to actively support the residents of Joshimath at the time of this crisis.
The plea complained that the incident occurred due to large-scale industrialisation and sought immediate financial assistance and compensation for the people of Uttarakhand.
“No development is needed at the cost of human life and their ecosystem and if any such thing is to happen, then it is the duty of the state and Union government to stop the same immediately at war level,” he said.
