Supreme Court Seeks Suggestions On Preventing Attacks Against Forest Officers

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a comprehensive report from Central Empowered Committee giving suggestions for preventing incidents where forest officers are attacked while discharging their duties.

A bench comprising of Justices B. R. Gavai and Vikram Nath was hearing an application filed by Senior Advocate A. D. N. Rao, Amicus Curiae in the matter(TN Godavarman Thirumalpad vs Union of India) where he had highlighted that the forest officers implementing Court's orders are being murdered.

Amicus submitted that, "The forest range officer goes to implement the order and gets murdered.....I am immediately concerned with providing some support to the family Chief Ministers have announced but nothing goes....Some action taken report to be filed."

The Amicus prayed to the Court that no Action Taken Report has been filed in the incidents and thus he asked the Court to direct the CEC to look into the issues and come up with some suggestions to prevent such unfortunate incidents from happening.

Recently, in November 2022 a Forest Range Officer Srinivasa Rao was attacked by the Guthikoya tribals while he was trying to prevent them from felling trees. Rao later succumbed to his injuries .Earlier, in 2019 Forest Range Officer C. Anitha was attacked by a mob. Since 2019 there have been various attacks on the Forest Range Officials while they were discharging their duties.