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Court has been told that the impugned amendments allow for exemptions for various projects and activities in forest lands, potentially serving commercial interests at the expense of the broader public welfare
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Friday, October 20, issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of recent amendments made to the Forest (Conservation) Act.
The bench comprising Justices BR Gavai, Aravind Kumar, and Prashant Kumar Mishra has sought the Centre's response on a writ petition filed by retired civil servants, including a former IFS officer.
It is the petitioners case that the 2023 Amendment Act “will radically undermine India’s decade-old forest governance regime”.
“Each diversion of land, without any cumulative ceiling being prescribed across the country, will pockmark our forests with cancerously growing deforested ‘islands’ and fragment them, causing enormous ecological loss...", the plea states.
Notably under the amendments made by the Centre, forest land up to 10 hectares is exempt from scrutiny under the Act if it is being proposed to be used for construction of ‘security related infrastructure’ with there being no clarity on what it would include.
Court has been further told that India is one of the most vulnerable countries to impacts of climate change, and weakening its ecological security by permitting rampant deforestation will only worsen the country’s adaptive capacity.
"India’s forests are a crucial defence against the climate crisis. Significantly, it is now established that the carbon sequestration potential of natural forests is 40 times greater as compared to plantations, and therefore we as a country cannot afford to lose our natural carbon sinks as the alternatives such as plantations are evidently not as effective..", the petition adds.
As the amendments were earlier considered by a Joint Committee of Parliament set-up to review the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023, the petitioners have submitted that this committee was “misled” as it took the assurance given by the government to protect all categories of forests on face value.
Case Title: Ashok Kumar Sharma, IFS (Retd) & Ors. vs. Union of India & Ors
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