Supreme Court Bars Union & States From Reducing Forest Land Unless Compensatory Land Provided

The Supreme Court yesterday restrained the Union and the States from taking any steps that would lead to reduction in "forest land" across the country, unless provision is made by them for compensatory land.A bench of Justices BR Gavai and K Vinod Chandran passed the order to the following effect: "Until further orders, no steps will be taken by the Union or any of the states which would lead to reduction in the forest land, unless compensatory land is provided either by the State or the Union for the purposes of forestation."Briefly put, the Court was dealing with a batch of writ petitions challenging the 2023 amendments to the Forest Conservation Act (FCA). In February, 2024, an interim order was passed in the matter directing that States and Union Territories must act as per the definition of "forest" laid down in the 1996 judgment in TN Godavarman Thirumalpad v. Union of India while the process of identifying land recorded as forests in Government records is going on as per the 2023 amendment to FCA.As per the order passed in February last year, the Court further directed that the Union of India shall, within a period of 2 weeks, require all States/UTs to provide it a comprehensive record of land identified as "forests" by the expert committees constituted by the States/UTs as per the TN Godavarman judgment. All states and UTs were to comply with the directions by forwarding the reports of the expert committees by March 31, 2024. It was further directed that the records shall be maintained by MoEF, digitized and made available on the official website by April 15, 2024. During yesterday's hearing, Senior Advocate PC Sen (appearing for retired IFS officials) urged that while the matter remains pending, forest land is being used by authorities for compensatory afforestation, which in turn is decreasing forest land area.He was joined by Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan (for an applicant) who submitted that MoEF has issued certain Rules (and then guidelines under the rules) which have been challenged by way of an application. The senior counsel further contended that pursuant to the Court's interim directions, some states have identified "forests", while some have not, and until the exercise is completed, the Rules can't be allowed to prevail. "While the states are yet to identify 'forests', the Rules can't be allowed to be used to permit ex post facto approval", he said.Referring to the Rules, Gopal S raised three contentions: (i) trees on forest lands are being cleared to give away land for compensatory afforestation (ii) ex post facto approval is not permissible (iii) linear projects have been granted complete exemption under the FCA, which is not permissible.In response, Justice Gavai posed to Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati (for Union), "Are you using forest land for compensatory afforestation?" The application in question not having been served on the Union, the ASG restricted her submissions to the Court's interim directions in the batch of petitions. She conceded that some states have complied with the Court's directions and some have not, and sought time to file a status report as well as a response to the application in question.At this point, Gopal S submitted that until forests are identified, some protection has to be there. He also underlined that 2 yrs were given to the authorities to identify forests, but nothing has happened for the past 29 yrs. Last year, he added, the authorities were directed to upload list of all forests, but that still remains to be done.Ultimately, the bench issued notice on the interim application argued by Gopal S. Justice Gavai orally told the ASG, "You will not permit anything which leads to reduction of forest area. And if you are using any forest area for some linear project, then you have to provide that much of land for compensatory afforestation."Case Title: ASHOK KUMAR SHARMA, INDIAN FOREST SERVICE (RETD) AND ORS. Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ANR., W.P.(C) No. 1164/2023Click Here To Read/Download Order

Supreme Court Bars Union & States From Reducing Forest Land Unless Compensatory Land Provided

Debby Jain

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