D.K. Agrawal JUDGMENT
Swatanter Kumar, J. (Chairperson)
1. The prayer in this application is for directing the Respondents an enquiry into the damage caused to the houses of the Applicants because of construction (especially tunnel) and other project activities carried out by the Project Proponent in the Parbati - Stage-II Hydroelectric Project. Further the prayer is for issuance of direction to Respondent Nos. 4 & 5 to pay compensation to the Applicants for rectification of the damage done. The Tribunal, vide its order dated 2.1.2014, constituted a Committee directing the committee to conduct a joint inspection of the houses and report to the Tribunal the damage caused to the properties of the Applicants.
In furtherance to the order of the Tribunal, the Committee submitted a detailed report with photographs of the properties in question to which the Applicant was directed to file objections vide order dated 28.03.2014. Along with the report, original hand-written site inspection report signed by all the Members of the Committee has also been filed. The main objections raised by the Applicants to the report of the Committee are that firstly, it associated a representative, the Chief Engineer of the Project Proponent, secondly that typed copy of the report is not signed by Mr. Anil Kumar, Geologist of the Department of Industries, State of Himachal Pradesh. According to the Applicant, for these two reasons itself, the report is liable to be rejected.
2. We find no merit in these contentions. Firstly, if the Committee had associated a representative of the Project Proponent, the Applicants were also permitted to participate in the inspection proceedings. Thus, they can hardly raise any objection in that behalf. Furthermore, as already noticed, though the typed report is not signed by Mr. Anil Kumar, one of the Member, but the original minutes and proceedings of the inspection at site dated 27.01.2014 are signed by the said Member, Mr. Anil Kumar as well. As the main typed report to which photographs have been annexed is relatable to the inspection proceedings dated 27.01.2014, the mere fact that the typed copy has not been signed, thus, would provide no benefit to the Applicants, much less be a ground for rejection of the inspection report. In the inspection report, the damage to each property has been assessed and even valued in terms of repairing etc. for each of the property separately.
3. Another aspect that the Tribunal has to deal with is that, blasting work, major construction work and heavy machinery work, according to the Project Proponent, had been completed in the year 2007 and thereafter no major construction work had been carried out which could result in any damage to the property. The writ petition before the Hon'ble High Court was filed in October, 2012 by the Applicant claiming for compensation for damage to the properties, which according to the Project Proponent, are not attributable to the activity of the Project Proponent. However, according to the Applicant, the damage occurred due to blasting and other major mechanical activities carried out by the Project Proponent and there is serious damage to the property. The Applicant has placed an estimate of private Architects showing that repairing the damage would cost a sum of around Rs. 23,00,000/- (Rupees Twenty Three Lakhs only) as building has to be demolished and reconstructed as opposed to the extent of nearly Rs. 2,00,000/- (Rupees Two Lakhs only) or so suggested by the Committee in relation to repair in the property of one of the Applicants. Similar reports have been filed in relation to other properties. We may refer to the documents placed by the Applicants himself on record which would show that the blasting and major mechanical construction work had been completed much prior to the institution of the writ petition. The Annexure-P-17/A that has been filed by the Applicant is the translated copy of the reply received by him in response to his RTI application. In this, it has specifically been stated that in response to the information sought by the Applicant, the quantum of explosive used for drillin........