MATRI SADAN THROUGH ITS TRUSTEE SWAMI NAGMANANDSARASWATI AND BRAHMCHARI DAYANAND Vs. HIMALAYA STONE CRUSHER PVT LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Special Appeal has been preferred against the Interim order of Learned Single Judge of this Court passed in Writ Petition No. 2137 (M/S) of 2010 Himalaya Stone Crusher Pvt. Ltd. and another Vs. State of Uttarakhand and others, wherein Honble Judge stayed the effect and operation of the order dated 10.12.2010 passed by the Additional Secretary and, consequently, the order dated 14.12.2010 passed by the Sub Divisional Magistrate.

(2.) THE brief facts sans unnecessary details are that Himalaya Stone Crusher Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter called as Crusher) is running its activities of crushing stone boulders and mining from the nearby flowing stream of Ganga in the outskirts of town Haridwar. This Crusher was founded way back in 1997 by its owner after procuring the license from the concerned authority to run the same. At the time of its inception although its was at outskirts of Haridwar city and it was not within the notified Kumbh Mela Area, but at that time too, it was amidst of the scattered population and at a very short distance of surrounding villages as well as the area of the Rajaji National Park besides being close to the flowing current of National river Ganga but any how the owner of this Crusher could remain successful in procuring license from the concerned authority to establish and run the same ignoring the several guidelines given in this regard by Honble Apex Court over the years as in M.C. Mehta Vs. Union of India and others (1992) 2 SCC 256, where the Honble Apex Court while adjudicating a PIL over the issue of Environmental pollution due to stone crushing activities had held :

(3.) THE Crusher owners got the license renewed to run their crushers from time to time by the concerned executive authority. The concerned authority, despite the resistance raised by several social activists, who were none others than the representative of population of surrounding villages. One of prominent resistance was manifested by the Saints of Matri Sadan Asharam whose location, as it appears, is not far from this Crusher, but the voice of them all proved to be a wild -goose chase as against influence of the crusher owners which they had generated in their entity at the strength of their power in terms of high contacts and rich in wherewithal which was perhaps an outcome of this high profiteering calling. Under the garb of running this crusher and lifting the boulders, the crusher owners started to dig the floor and banks of National river Ganga causing the inherent deleterious affect not only upon the entire surrounding society but also upon the humanity at large. These injurious affects have been disclosed in the representation of the several social activists (available on the record) can be summarized as under :