{"id":2385,"date":"2015-02-06T11:35:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T11:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/?p=2385"},"modified":"2021-12-01T12:37:42","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T12:37:42","slug":"dissenting-views-not-anti-national-hc-tells-asg-on-priya-pillai-offloading-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/press\/2385\/dissenting-views-not-anti-national-hc-tells-asg-on-priya-pillai-offloading-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissenting views not anti-national: HC tells ASG on Priya Pillai Offloading Case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Delhi| February 6, <\/strong>2015| Hearing Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai\u2019s writ petition on her arbitrary offloading from a London-bound flight on January 11, the Delhi High Court today told the Additional Solicitor General that a different point of view does not tantamount to being anti-national. The Court ordered the respondents to substantiate their claims that Pillai was working against national interest through an affidavit and evidence in court. The court also observed that the Indian democracy is robust enough to accommodate different point of views. The case will now be heard on February 18.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Greenpeace India stands by Pillai and reiterates that the government\u2019s offloading of Pillai was arbitrary and a suppression of her basic constitutional rights as an Indian citizen, and challenges the government to provide a legal justification for their action.<\/p>\n

Pillai was not allowed to board her flight to London on January 11, allegedly because her name figured on a \u2018lookout circular\u2019 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Pillai\u2019s passport was stamped with the word \u2018Offload\u2019 \u2013 an action that could scar the activist\u2019s reputation and career, apart from being a potential violation of her rights.<\/p>\n

Pillai and Greenpeace India have been supporting tribal villages in the Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh opposed to the Mahan coal mine, which threatens a large forest area that many thousands depend on for their livelihoods. Prior to its de-allocation by the Supreme Court in the \u201ccoalgate\u201d verdict, the Mahan coal block was allocated jointly to London registered Essar and Hindalco. The growing fight to stop the mine is believed to be the reason Pillai was singled out by the government as she was headed to the UK to brief British MPs on the issue.<\/p>\n

Samit Aich, Executive Director, Greenpeace India, said: \u201cIt has been almost a month since Priya was offloaded, and the government remains spectacularly unable to provide any valid reason or basis in law for their action.\u00a0 This was an undemocratic act, a complete violation of basic constitutional rights and a blatant attempt to suppress free speech. Greenpeace India works in defence of the environment that all Indians depend on; how is this anti-national? If this government is genuine about its promise of inclusive development, it needs to work with civil society rather than seek to suppress its voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

On January 20, the Delhi High Court blocked the Indian government\u2019s move to stop the flow of funds from Greenpeace International to Greenpeace India, in response to a writ petition filed by the environmental watchdog. In June 2014, a leaked report from India\u2019s Intelligence Bureau termed NGOs opposing the government\u2019s energy policies as \u201cacting against national interest\u201d and suggested that action be taken against them, including blocking their access to overseas funding. The government has so far refused to officially accept or deny the IB report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n \t\t\t

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New Delhi| February 6, 2015| Hearing Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai\u2019s writ petition on her arbitrary offloading from a London-bound flight on January 11, the Delhi High Court today told the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[22],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-2385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-forest","p4-page-type-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12350,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions\/12350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}