Calcutta HC Opens June Hearing on Great Nicobar Project
By rejecting the Centre’s standing challenge, the court keeps the Great Nicobar case alive and turns consent procedures into the real battleground.
The Calcutta High Court has kept the Great Nicobar challenge alive by overruling the Union government’s preliminary objections and listing the case for final hearing on June 23, a move that shifts leverage from the Centre to the petitioners for now (
The Hindu; 
Indian Express). For the broader governance context, see 
India and Global Politics.
Why the court’s move matters
The immediate issue is not the project’s economics but the legal route used to clear it. The petitions allege violations of the Forest Rights Act in obtaining consent for the ₹92,000-crore Great Nicobar Island project, which includes an international container transhipment port, an airport and a greenfield township (The Hindu; Indian Express). The court refused to accept the Centre’s argument that petitioner Meena Gupta lacked locus standi, saying she had sufficient interest because she was “espousing the cause of the vulnerable tribal community” (The Hindu).
That matters because the Centre tried to frame the project as too important for judicial second-guessing. The bench declined that logic, saying a project involving huge expenditure still has to proceed under governing law and remains open to judicial review on permissible grounds (The Hindu). In plain terms: “national importance” is not a legal shield.
The real pressure point: consent
The controversy now turns on whether the administration actually secured valid tribal consent under the Forest Rights Act. The Hindu reported that the petitions challenge Gram Sabha resolutions, a sub-divisional level committee, and a certificate claiming all FRA rights had been identified and settled (The Hindu). A separate report showed why this is vulnerable: the Gram Sabha attendance figures submitted in court were far below the 50% quorum required under FRA rules, with turnout ranging from 1.83% to 14.72% in the villages cited (The Hindu; 
The Wire).
That is why the political winners here are not the usual suspects. The petitioners and Nicobarese and Shompen community interests gain time, legal standing and a credible procedural attack. The losers are the Union government and the Andaman and Nicobar administration, which now have to defend not just the project’s strategic case but the paperwork behind it (Indian Express). The Centre’s broader development narrative is now hostage to whether its own consent record survives scrutiny.
What to watch next
June 23 is the next decision point. If the court finds the consent process defective, the project could face delay, revalidation or narrower clearances; if the government produces a defensible record, the Centre keeps momentum on a project it sees as strategically and commercially central (The Hindu; The Wire). The question is no longer whether the project is ambitious. It is whether the state can show it was lawful.
