National Green Tribunal terms plot in Haryana village as ‘deemed forest’

The environment ministry’s regional office, which conducted an inquiry of the felling of trees in August 2017 following complaints by local environmental activists, had also concluded that the plot had dense vegetation (1,846 trees per hectare) and that it can be treated as “deemed forest.”

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has held that a 52-acre plot in Sarai Khwaja village of Haryana’s Faridabad district is a “deemed forest” — a ruling that has potential implications for a real estate development in the area and similar projects coming up on such sites elsewhere. In the verdict published on Friday, the NGT said that going by the definition of a forest, the plot should be deemed as one.

The Haryana government had permitted the felling of over 7,000 trees in the village. (HT File Photo)

The Haryana forest department and the regional office of the Union environment ministry had ruled in the past that the land may not be listed as a forest in revenue records. The Haryana government had permitted the felling of over 7,000 trees in the village, including mesquite and axle wood (dhau) ,for a group housing project being developed by Bharti Land Limited.

Despite the Haryana forest department acknowledging that the area is a forest on past occasions and disallowing the felling of trees in September 2015, the additional chief secretary (forests) directed the department in June 2017 to permit the project, arguing that the area had not been shown as a forest in revenue records.

The NGT said in its ruling that the additional chief secretary’s view was “based on erroneous understanding of law. It is wrongly assumed that in absence of the area being ‘recorded as forest’ in the revenue record, the same cannot be taken as ‘forest.’”

The bench, headed by NGT chairperson Adarsh Kumar Goel, said: “The test to be applied is not whether the area is recorded as forest in the revenue record but whether the area is to be so treated by the forest department in terms of the dictionary meaning. Applying this test, the forest department has always treated the land as ‘deemed forest.’”

The environment ministry’s regional office, which conducted an inquiry of the felling of trees in August 2017 following complaints by local environmental activists, had also concluded that the plot had dense vegetation (1,846 trees per hectare) and that it can be treated as “deemed forest.”

HT had reported on February 22 that the Union environment ministry had contradicted the findings of its regional office’s inquiry report in NGT. The ministry informed NGT through an affidavit that the area is in fact not a forest and that it agreed with the Haryana government’s decision to permit the felling of trees in Sarai Khwaja.

Responding to this, the NGT said: “the environment ministry has mechanically upheld the stand of Haryana, ignoring the enquiry report of the northern regional office of the ministry. If such an enquiry report was to be disagreed, it was necessary for the ministry to have given its reasons. The enquiry report was based on valid factual and legal basis which have been brushed aside in agreeing with the erroneous view of Haryana.”

The Tribunal, in its judgment, hasn’t specified if the permission to build on the plot will now be withdrawn or whether the land will be restored.

One of the main contentions of the plea filed by Lt Col (retd) Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi was that Haryana government was in violation of past SC orders that irrespective of whether an area is a forest as per revenue records, it will be covered by the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and the area cannot be used for any non-forestry activity without the Centre’s permission if it meets the dictionary meaning of forest.

“We have to take the opinion of our legal team before commenting,” said Prem Subedi, group communications lead, Bharti enterprises.

Sanjeev Ailawadi, legal advisor to Ajay Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, which owns the land, said: “The judgement suffers from serious inconsistencies both in law and facts and our company is going to file an appeal against the same before the Supreme Court. We are quite hopeful that the honourable SC would do justice to the matter and that finally the judgement given by National Green tribunals would be reversed.”

Environmentalists said the NGT judgement sets a precedent for recognition of more deemed forests in the Haryana Aravallis, including spots with rich biodiversity like the Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Gurugram and Mangar Bani, a forest grove.

“This is a historic moment in the forestry governance of Haryana...This has implications for 50,000 acres of Aravallis which are outside the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA) special sections 4 and 5, Mangar Bani ) and the Aravalli Biodiversity Park — all waiting for their deemed forest status to be decided,” forest expert Chetan Agarwal said.