Aastha Thakur
Published on: 02 September, 2022 at 23:35 IST
The Kerala High Court ruled on Thursday that a person’s ability to criticise the government does not give them the power to stop a lawfully approved project.
During a hearing in the case Adani Vizhinjam Port Pvt. Ltd., Justice Anu Sivaraman stated that the freedom to protest only applied to nonviolent demonstrations.
The court mandated that Adani Ports employees and ors. employees who are involved in the building of the Kerala port have police security.
According to the judgement, which was quoted that, “This Court has time and time again considered the issue of competing interests in the grant of police protection and has held that a right to protest can only mean a right to protest peacefully and that there can be no right to obstruct a legally permitted project or activity in the name of a protest, whatever the reason for the protest.”
The Adani company began building a port at Vizhinjam, Kerala, on December 5, 2015, but fishermen have been protesting against it ever since.
The fishermen have been calling for adequate environmental impact studies, among other things, as well as the rehabilitation of people whose houses were destroyed due to coastal erosion and the repair of any damages to the shore.
The court issued the ruling in response to two requests for police protection filed by Adani Ports and its subcontractor Howe Engineering Projects.
The petitioners said that demonstrators had blocked the entrance and departure points to the construction site, and they added that since August 17 the protests had caused a halt to building activity.