The Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration—controlled by the Union Home Ministry—certified that all individual and community rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 had been identified, settled, and consent obtained for diversion to the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project. On December 18, 2024, this approval was challenged in the Calcutta High Court by Meena Gupta, a retired IAS officer who had been secretary in both the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and had also been a senior official in the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Her petition contended that the certification of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration did not follow the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in letter and spirit and, in fact, constituted a very serious breach of the law passed by Parliament in December 2006. Thereafter on February 19, 2025, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, quite strangely, filed an affidavit in the Calcutta High Court submitting that it should be removed from the list of respondents.
Despite ongoing challenges in Calcutta High Court
However, on September 8, 2025, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs sought a factual report from the Chief Secretary of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on several points raised by the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar Islands regarding the non-compliance by the local administration with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs seems to be curiously ambivalent even as the challenge in the Calcutta High Court awaits a detailed hearing.Separately, the environmental clearance to the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project is also under challenge in the National Green Tribunal. But all this has not stopped the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation from inviting expression of interest from “interested parties for enumeration, felling, logging and transportation of trees” and from marking on the ground areas under the project.
National Green Tribunal over non-compliance
Galathea Bay has also already been declared as a major port. The blatant violations of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, notwithstanding, the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change notwithstanding, the Modi Govt is bulldozing this ecological disaster of a project through.