Supreme Court declines to stay NGT order calling Faridabad plot a forest

The Haryana government appealed to the Supreme Court against the NGT order, which effectively meant that construction cannot take place in the village.

The Supreme Court Friday declined to stay a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order declaring a 52- acre plot in Sarai Khwaja village of Haryana’s Faridabad a “deemed forest,” saying the matter needs to be heard in greater detail.

The government had, prior to the NGT order, already issued permission to builders to carry our construction on the plot. (HT File Photo)

The Haryana government appealed to the Supreme Court against the NGT order, which effectively meant that construction cannot take place in the village. The government had, prior to the NGT order, already issued permission to builders to carry our construction on the plot.

A bench comprising justice Rohinton Nariman and justice Surya Kant issued notices to the respondent in this case and petitioner in the NGT, Lt Col (Retd) Sarvadaman Singh, and to the environment ministry on Friday.

“The bench refused to the stay the NGT order. So the NGT order is in place and the plot should be considered a forest for now. Col Singh has been asked to file a reply to Haryana’s appeal in SC,” said Ritwick Dutta, who represents Singh in SC. The order is yet to be published.

Haryana’s additional advocate general, Anil Grover, who is representing the state, said: “The bench said the matter requires detailed consideration.” The licences issued to the builders would not be revoked, he added.

Three months after the NGT held the 52-acre plot in the Faridabad Aravallis, where more than 7,000 trees were felled in 2017 for a housing project, was a “deemed forest,” the Haryana government moved the SC, saying the NGT order was “erroneous in law.”

The plea raised questions of law, whether any land can be declared a deemed forest despite a different stand taken by the ministry of environment, forest and climate change, which is in the process of finalising the definition of a forest; and whether the enquiry report the NGT considered to deliver its ruling was “illegal, vitiated and liable” to be rejected, among others.

One of the main contentions of the plea filed in NGT in June 2017 was that the Haryana government had been in violation of the Supreme Court orders in the TN Godavarman and Lafarge cases pertaining to forest issues in 1996 and 2011, respectively.

Those judgments said irrespective of whether an area is a forest as per revenue records, it will be covered by the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and cannot be used for any non-forestry activity without the Centre’s permission.

The petitioner argued that the same standard should be applied to the Sarai Khwaja plot, which had dense vegetation-- 8,254 trees and rootstock with over 38,000 stems, according to the Haryana forest department’s own count.