States can't denotify forests: SC panel

A Supreme Court committee had said that state governments have no powers to denotify forestland without approval of the Supreme Court and central government. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 5, 2010, 22:43:56 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

A Supreme Court committee had said that state governments have no powers to denotify forestland without approval of the Supreme Court and central government.

Linking the Indian Forest Act, which gives powers to the state government to denotify a forest, with the Forest Conservation (FC) Act, which vests the same powers with the Centre, the court's central empowered committee said that unless approval under the FC Act is taken, denotification cannot take place. The CEC acts on the court's direction on forest issues.

"Before obtaining approval of the central government under FC Act, permission of the court is required as per judgment of 2000," the panel said in a recent report submitted to the court, with a reference to the Lafarge limestone mining case in Meghalaya.

The area's autonomous body had described the mining area as non-forestland; amicus curia Harish Salve rejected the view. There have been several instances of project proponents avoiding seeking the Centre's approval on the ground that the area was not a forestland.

"Once a forest, always a forest," the report said, emphasising how difficult it is to denotify a forest.

The report said that even if there is no tree in a forestland, it will have to be considered as forest under the FC Act, meaning that central approval will have to be taken before starting any project there.

The panel also clarified that putting forestland under the administrative control of the revenue department does not alter the forest status of the land.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.