Nicobar’s gram sabhas signed infra project without mandated quorum

ENVIRONMENT – BIODIVERSITY

7 MAY 2026

• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (A&NI) administration did not achieve the mandated 50% quorum at the gram sabha meetings held to get consent for the Centre’s ₹92,000-crore Great Nicobar Island project.
• Instead, it claimed to have done so by attendance figures ranging from 2% to 15% of the population, which, it argued in the Calcutta High Court, counted as “proper quorum”.
• The administration submitted that meetings were held for Campbell Bay, Laxmi Nagar, and Govind Nagar gram panchayats, covering seven villages, on August 12, 2022.
• The submissions were made by the administration in an affidavit to the Bench that is hearing a batch of petitions alleging that procedures under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) had been violated in obtaining consent for the project.
• Quorum is the minimum number of members needed in such a meeting to reach a decision. According to the rules issued by the Centre for the implementation of the FRA, a quorum at a gram sabha is achieved only if ‘one-half’ or 50% of the adult population of that village is in attendance, of which one-third must be women.
• The Campbell Bay meeting was attended by 105 people, the one in Laxmi Nagar by 163 people, and the Govind Nagar sabha had 81 people. The administration said all three meetings passed “unanimous” resolutions consenting to the project.
• In the supplementary affidavit filed by an official of the Tribal Welfare Department, the administration has argued that due process was followed under the FRA to hold special gram sabhas, with “prior notice and proper quorum”, which passed resolutions on forest rights of the people and consented to the diversion of forest land for the project.
• The administration also justified its prior notice of one day for such meetings.