NEW DELHI: As amendments brought by Centre in the Forest (Conservation) Act has allegedly resulted in 1.97 lakh square km of land getting excluded from forest area, Supreme Court on Monday restrained central and state govts from doing anything which would lead to reduction of forest area in the country. It said even in cases in which some forest land is to be used for some urgent need, then alternative land must be provided for reforestation.
While issuing notice to Centre on a petition challenging the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Rules, 2023, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran clarified that it would not permit anything which leads to reduction of forest area.
“We further order that until further orders, no steps will be taken by the Union of India and any state which will lead to reduction of forest land,” the bench said. It said in cases where use of forest area was urgent for any reasons, including for strategic purposes on border areas, then compensatory land must be provided so that the forest area remains the same.
The court was hearing a batch of petitions, including one filed by a group of retired Indian Forest Officers, which have challenged the amendment, alleging that it resulted in vast tracts of forests losing legal protection and becoming vulnerable to be used for non-forest purposes.
The petitioners alleged that the change in the law would “radically undermine India’s decades-old forest governance regime” and also violate the apex court ruling by curtailing the definition of forest land that will fall within its ambit. Senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan and lawyer Kaushik Choudhury, appearing for them, said a statutory mechanism has been put in place by the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) purportedly to increase tree cover but this will be extremely damaging to India’s forest cover.
“The mechanism, which emerges from four regulatory instruments passed by the ministry, has been designed with the primary intention of facilitating hassle-free diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes, with little concern for the adverse impacts of exposing the country’s valuable forest lands to market-based mechanisms,” they said.
Additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for Centre, said govt would respond to the allegation levelled by the petitioners and sought three weeks’ time. She also assured the court to file a status report on declared forest area in the country on the next date of hearing.
Challenging the amendment, the petitioners said that the new definition of forest has left the most vulnerable forest areas of India unprotected and the 2023 Amendment removes protections provided earlier to vast tracts of forest land and restricts protections only to declared and notified forest under the Indian Forest Act.