Leave earth in good condition than exploring alien planet: Madras High Court

It is better to leave the earth in good condition than exploring an alien planet, the Madras High Court has observed.

The court made the observations on Wednesday while disposing of a batch of criminal revision petitions, which challenged the orders passed by a lower court in Nagapattinam, which had rejected their plea to return the vehicles that were seized allegedly due to transporting illegally mined sand.

"The mother earth is our heritage, which has been inherited by us from our past generations without much damage and in fact with many developments, to enjoy all its treasures conserving all its goodness and not making any defacement under the guise of development, to be bestowed on our future generations. While the geologists proclaim that the age of the earth, where we live now is 4.543 billion years, they expound that it is our responsibility to leave this planet in a better shape for the future generations than we found it, rather, to close our eyes on the cruelty being committed to our precious earth and take pride in our search for an alien planet with least infrastructure by spending huge money to survive afresh."

"In the present generation, the deterioration rate is at a new pace. We see perennial rivers that were once flowing with clean water are now converted into drainage channels to carry effluents," Justice A D Jagadish Chandra lamented.

The petitioners contended that if the vehicles seized are left idle in the open and exposed to all weather conditions, their value would get diminished, causing heavy monetary loss to them. They sought for the immediate release of the vehicles.

State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah submitted that the vehicles were under confiscation proceedings. If the vehicles were ordered to be released, the petitioners would indulge in the same illegal activities.

The judge said that in the instant case, the data produced by the PP showed that in all the cases, confiscation proceedings had already been initiated. "Therefore, this court is of the view that in the interest of justice, it would suffice if a direction is given for conclusion of the confiscation proceedings within a time frame," the judge added and accordingly directed the authority concerned to conclude the confiscation proceedings within six months.