New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed all the states and center areas whether any reserved forest land in the possession of the Revenue Department was allotted to any private parties for the non-conscious purpose, so directed to constitute special investigation teams to investigate this.
Given the “shining issue” in which a huge stretch of the notified forest land was still in the possession of the revenue department, the Supreme Court asked all the states and the UT to occupy such land.
A bench of Chief Justice Bra Gawai and Justice Augustine George Maasih and Kin Vinod Chandran referred to a report by the Central Empowerment Committee (CEC), indicating evidence to show that several forest lands were allotted to private individuals or institutions for non-one-wise purposes.
The bench said, “We further direct the Chief Secretaries of all the states and the administrators of all the union areas to constitute special investigation teams for the purpose of examining whether any private individuals/institutions have been allotted for any purpose other than the forestry objective.”
States and UT were also directed to take steps to occupy such land and hand over to the forest department.
The bench said in its 88-place area, “In the case, it is found that the land will not be in large public interest, the state governments/center areas should recover the cost of the said land from individuals/institutions for which they were allocated and the said amount was used for the purpose of development of forests.”
It also instructed the states and UTS to ensure that all such transfer occur within a year.
The bench said, “There is no need to explain that after this such land should be used only for the purpose of afforestation.”
The apex court gave its verdict in a case related to reserved forest land in Pune.
The bench admitted that on August 28, 1998, the allocation of 11.89 hectares of forest land reserved at village Kondhawa Budrook in Pune for agricultural objectives and later on 30 October 1999 was “completely illegal” for its sale in favor of Richie Rich Cooperative Housing Society Limited (RRCHS).
“We do not even have that the then Revenue Minister and the then Divisional Commissioner, Pune, has given the total principle of the public trust, as, the valuable forest land was allotted the provisions of the law to ‘Chavan family’s de horses’,” it has been said.
The bench noted that the land was allocated in favor of a “Chavan family” in 1998.
“The current case is a classic example of how the connivance between politicians, bureaucrats and builders can result in conversion of precious forest land for commercial purposes, which under the rehabilitation of people belonging to backward classes, whose ancestors, from the ancestors, were acquired for public purpose,”.
As a result, the apex court on July 3, 2007 canceled the environmental approval given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to RRCHS.
Moef gave environmental approval for a residential, shopping and construction of IT complex.
The bench said that since the state had recalled the communication of August 4, 1998, the allocation of land to the “Chavan family” was approved and it retained the same.
It directed that the subject land occupied, which is reserved as a forest land, but is in the possession of the revenue department, should be handed over to the forest department within three months.
The bench said that to allow any non-One-One activity within the area of any “forest”, prior approval of the Central Government was required.
RRCHS, it was noted, well known that the land was a forest land, entered the transaction with members of the “Chavan family”, allocated in their favor long before the land.
The bench said, “The transactions between members of the RRCHS and the ‘Chavan Parivar’ were completely illegal and were contrary to the situations on which the land was allotted to the ‘Chavan family’,” the bench said.
The bench said that “dangerous speed” took place from July to August 1998, the bench said, speaking volumes.
The bench said, “We have no hesitation in assuming that the then Revenue Minister, the Government of Maharashtra and the then Divisional Commissioner, Pune has fully worked in a violation of the public trust to provide illegal private individuals to the cost of sacrificing precious forest land.”
It said that the allocation of subject land to the “Chavan family” was in disregard of the provisions of the law as it was a violation of Section 2 of the Forest (Protection) Act, 1980.
No forest land can be determined in Section 2 of the Act of 1980, which can be de-resurrected or used for any non-forest purposes without the permission of the central government.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
