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| Edited By: Sreejiraj Eluvangal |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 04:03 AM IST
The Delhi high court has refused to direct environmental organisation Greenpeace to immediately take down the ‘Turtle vs TATA’ game from its website.
Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, had filed a Rs10 crore defamation and trademark infringement case against the game intended to highlight the alleged threat to the Olive Ridley turtles by Tata-L&T’s upcoming Dhamra private port in Orissa.
The Dhamra port project, proposed in the 1990s, is close to the Bhitarkanika National Park and Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary in an area that houses endangered species such as the saltwater crocodile, besides the turtle.
“By denying Tata’s plea for an interim injunction, the high court has stood up in defence of the fundamental right to free speech and fair criticism, the basis of any democracy,” said Ashish Fernandes, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace India.
“The Dhamra project remains a national disgrace and the fact that authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the irregularities in the project is shameful,” he said.
Greenpeace has been an outspoken critic of the Dhamra port project and had obtained the file jottings of environment minister Jairam Ramesh, which allegedly showed that he was letting the project go on as it was near completion.
“Had construction not commenced, we could have taken a decision unequivocally not to let the project proceed at the site whose 'forest status' is disputed,” Greenpeace had claimed that the minister wrote, in a statement based on documents obtained using the Right to Information Act.
“...Were we to consider this case today, we will have no option but to insist on clearance under FCA 1980,” the note by Jairam went on.
The ministry subsequently gave an undertaking before the Supreme Court that the area was not forest land, drawing Greenpeace's ire.
