The Uttarakhand high court on Wednesday issued notices to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Union government and the state government in connection with a petition alleging disproportionate assets of territorial forest officers and the reported disappearance of 7,375 forest boundary pillars in the Mussoorie Forest Division.
The division bench of justices Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Subash Upadhyay issued the notices on Wednesday after hearing a petition regarding the alarming disappearance of over 7,000 forest boundary pillars in the Mussoorie Forest Division.
Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, appearing for the petitioner Naresh Chaudhary, said the systematic obliteration of these crucial demarcation markers has opened the floodgates for rampant encroachment, illegal construction, and ecological plunder in one of India’s most fragile and critical forest ecosystems.
“The petition contends that this disaster is not accidental but the result of a deeply entrenched and malevolent nexus between complicit forest officials, powerful political interests, and land mafias,” he said.
Advocate Bansal also highlighted internal reports of the state forest department officially confirming that 7,375 boundary pillars are missing from the ground, with the majority vanishing from the commercially lucrative Mussoorie and Raipur ranges. The petition highlighted that this has led to irreversible forest cover loss, increased landslide risks, and was a contributing factor to the floods and connectivity disruptions.
He said the petition alleged that despite these damning official findings and recommendations for a high-level probe by the forest department’s own Working Plan wing, the State authorities had taken no credible action. “Instead, they attempted to initiate a superficial re-investigation by a junior officer, which the petitioner argued was a blatant attempt to shield the powerful culprits involved,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}He said the petition alleged that despite these damning official findings and recommendations for a high-level probe by the forest department’s own Working Plan wing, the State authorities had taken no credible action. “Instead, they attempted to initiate a superficial re-investigation by a junior officer, which the petitioner argued was a blatant attempt to shield the powerful culprits involved,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}He said taking serious note of the allegations of large-scale corruption, collusion, and the monumental threat to a region of national ecological importance, the HC has issued formal notices to CBI, for a potential investigation into the criminal conspiracy behind the disappearance of the pillars and the alleged illicit enrichment of forest custodians, Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, as the central authority responsible for forest conservation under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and Uttarakhand forest department, the principal authority accused of gross failure in protecting and demarcating its forest boundaries.
He said during the course of the hearing the court also observed that the missing of boundary pillars in Mussoorie is a very serious issue and as such Centre and State must respond.
The PIL also seeks comprehensive relief, including time-bound re-demarcation and digitization of all forest land, transfer of forest land from Revenue to Forest Department control, and the formulation of an ecological restoration plan.
On August 28, the Union environment ministry had directed the state forest department to conduct a prompt investigation and submit a report in the matter of 7,375 forest boundary pillars reported missing in the Mussoorie Forest Division. In a communication dated August 22, 2025, the then chief conservator of forests (working plan) Sanjiv Chaturvedi had conveyed concerns about missing boundary pillars in the division. The letter sent to Neelima Shah, assistant inspector general of forests (central) MOEF Dehradun, had noted that such activities amounted to a breach of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and called for urgent corrective measures and investigation. Chaturvedi was transferred on August 25 and posted as director of Forest Training Academy.
Earlier Chaturvedi had written two letters- on June 21 and August 20- to Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (HoFF), Uttarakhand that 7,375 forest boundary pillars in the Mussoorie Forest Division are missing, which is nearly 60 % of the total boundary pillars in the division, especially in Raipur and Mussoorie range. According to the first letter, a review of the Mussoorie Forest Division’s working plan, which is in its final stages of revision, has revealed that 7,375 boundary pillars (out of 12,321 pillars) shown on the map are missing on the ground. The disappearance of such a large number of pillars is “extremely unusual”, it added. The letter stated that the incident has significantly tarnished the image of the department and needs to be investigated by a special investigation team or CBI under judicial supervision.