When Perpetrators Act as Judge

On paper Meena Gupta committee, assigned to assess environment and forest related issues with regard to POSCO's project in Odisha, has given a split report. But a closer look reveals that it is just one member's - who happened to be the boss of the department which doled out many clearances and which are being subjected to review by the committee - divergent view. 


Meena Gupta’s report is a classic example of what happens when one allows a prosecutor to also try the case.  To be slightly more scathing this case is even serious as it involves an enquiry of a crime by a person who has been party to abetment of that crime itself. As has been already pointed out, Ms Gupta was at the helm of affairs when many environmental / forest clearances were granted by the MoEF. She took charge of environment and forest ministry as its Secretary on June 1, 2007. Prior to that, she worked in the same ministry as the Chief of the Regulatory Agency. Earlier she was the health Secretary to the Government of Odisha. Her period as the Secretary of the Environment Ministry or as the Chief of the Regulatory Agency coincides or precedes or succeeds with many clearances and permissions given to POSCO. Some of the clearances include:

1.      Environmental clearance to captive port on 15 May, 2007.

2.      Environmental clearance to POSCO plant on 19 July, 2007.

3.      CRZ clearance to port on 15 May, 2007.

4.      In principle forest clearance given on 19 Sept, 2008.

5.      Final forest clearance given on 29 Dec, 2009.

As Ms Gupta was a key decision maker with regard to POSCO, it was quite natural for her to interpret the ToR for the committee in a very narrow manner. She only wanted to assess whether the orders and clearances have been complied with. She was not ready or interested to assess whether the clearances granted by MoEF were based on sound reasoning or after proper enforcement of the existing laws and guidelines. After all how can she even tolerate that the decisions taken by her department when she herself was the Secretary can be subjected to scrutiny by a committee headed by her?

While the three other members of the committee have taken a holistic look while going through their task, Ms Gupta has been quite the opposite. Some of her reasonings are quite infantile. She tries to make a difference between POSCO and Vedanta. She says, “POSCO and Vedanta are very different projects and operate in different environs and circumstances. Vedanta’s alumina plant (and the bauxite mine for which lease was applied for by the Orissa Mining Corporation), is located in the less developed western part of Orissa, in a Scheduled Area which is home to two Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs)…. POSCO’s plant, on the other hand is to be located in a coastal district, in the more developed eastern part of Orissa; the area is not a Scheduled Area and has virtually no Scheduled Tribe people.” It is so ironic that Meena Gupta has again erred in failing to see the POSCO project in its whole. She has conveniently ignored that the POSCO project too involves large scale mining, which ostensibly will be done in a scheduled area. The Khandadhar mine is being considered for POSCO. This mine too falls in a scheduled area having primitive tribal’s – the Paudi Bhuyans – habitat.  Violation and denigration of FRA is no less rampant that in Niyamgiri there too.  

Meena Gupta says “each of the members also had a very different understanding of the issues.” That’s quite expected. But how is it that while three well versed and experienced members had an entirely different opinion on whether forest exists in the proposed project area? That had nothing to do with ‘understanding’; they are mere ‘inputs’. She says,

“the area recorded as forest is mainly sandy waste, with some scrub forest, apart from the casuarina plantations in the area.” In sharp contrast to this view the majority report on the other hand says, “As per the land cover analysis with high resolution satellite imagery of 2006/2007 by Orissa government about 70% area of the forest land is covered with various kinds of forest and trees and the remaining area is sandy, covered with betel vine, agriculture and other miscellaneous activities, as also water bodies. The areas under casuarina plantation which occupies the major portion of forests in the coastal areas were earlier covered with mangroves and were destroyed either during super cyclones or by illegal cutting.” Even the main report, drafted by Meena Gupta says at one place, “Since almost 74% of the land to be given to POSCO was forest land, with about 2.8 lakh trees,…”.

Meena Gupta too had an awful interpretation on whether schedule tribe people live in the proposed area or not. While comparing POSCO with Vedanta’s Niyamgiri project she says, “POSCO’s plant, on the other hand is to be located in a coastal district, in the more developed eastern part of Orissa; the area is not a Scheduled Area and has virtually no Scheduled Tribe people.” The majority opinion of the committee on the other hand says, “A large number of documentary and oral evidences have been found to support the presence of forest dwelling STs and OTFDs in the proposed POSCO project area contrary to the claim made by the district administration and the Orissa government that there are none. The voter list of 2006 mentions 21 names of ST community living in one of the villages Polang, included in the project area. A number of non tribal people living in project affected villages have produced documents of 1920s showing their relationship, dependence on forests/forest land thereby clearly establishing the existence of OTFDs and STs in the project area.”

Ms Gupta has failed to go through her task independent of other factors. Rather she has been far too bothered by the scathing N. C. Saxena Committee report and subsequent revoking of environmental clearance to Vedanta’s Niyamgiri project.  She admits, “Since POSCO, like Vedanta is a large mineral based company in the process of establishing a major project in Orissa, the two projects are often equated in the public mind. There was an immediate assumption, therefore, that the POSCO project, too, would be disallowed. Working in this kind of charged atmosphere is neither pleasant nor easy.” It wasn’t truly easy for her. For while the other three members of the POSCO committee stood straight irrespective of preceding happenings, Ms Gupta meekly succumbed.

Having said all this, we too should not call Ms Gupta’s report a trash. She too has a long experience of efficiently handling many responsible assignments. Rather we should highlight how a perpetrator should not have been a judge at the first place and how most government officers hold a narrow vision and tend to arrogantly stick to that narrowness.