Uttarakhand HC dismissed plea against projects near Joshimath in 2021, called petitioners ‘puppets’

Officials and geologists examining the damage in Joshimath also believe the 2021 flash floods that washed away the Rishiganga mini-hydropower project and claimed nearly 200 lives — were the trigger to Joshimath’s present-day troubles

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed during the glacial flooding of February 2021, which cited some of the reasons for the Joshimath subsidence today, was dismissed by the Uttarakhand High Court in 2021. A penalty of ₹50,000 was also imposed on the petitioners as the court called them “merely puppets at the hand of an unknown puppeteer”

In February 2021 floods, when over 200 people died at Raini village in Joshimath, the locals approached the Uttarakhand High Court where the then Chief Justice Raghvendra Chauhan had rejected the petition in the first hearing itself.

The plea before the High Court sought to restrain the construction of the Tapovan hydropower project till the early warning system is in place and sought a direction to declare the current incidents of landslide, subsidence, land sinking, land burst, and cracks in the land and properties as a national disaster and direct the National Disaster Management Authority to support the residents of Joshimath.

Explained | Why is the land sinking in Joshimath? 

The appeal requested the High Court to order reconsidering the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) power project in Joshimath and ban the activities of environmental destruction in the area. “The Justice, then, had called us ‘puppets’. Today, the same project has become a threat to the existence of a town,” Atul Sati, convener of the Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti said.

Activists expressed concern after the Supreme Court on January 16 refused to entertain a plea seeking the top court’s intervention to declare Joshimath subsidence, a natural disaster, noting that the petition on the same issue is pending before the Uttarakhand High Court.

“The top court asked the petitioners to go to the same court [Uttarakhand HC] that had called him ‘puppets’ and had declined his petition in 2021 after imposing a penalty of ₹50,000,” Mr. Sati said informing about the PIL petition filed by him and four other people, including Sohan Singh (grandson of Chipko Movement’s leader Gaura Devi), Atul Sati, convener of the Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti.