The Centre’s law officer informed that most States had also not completed the exercise of consolidation of records of their forest lands under Rule 16(1) of the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam Rules, 2023. 
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 4, 2025) issued a stern warning that Chief Secretaries of States and Administrators of Union Territories will be held personally liable if they failed to constitute expert committees to identify forests in their respective jurisdictions in a month, followed by the preparation of consolidated records of these lands within the next six months.

The order by a Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih came after Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati submitted that several States had still not constituted expert committees in compliance with a Supreme Court judgment on December 12, 1996 and subsequent court orders.

The Centre’s law officer informed that most States had also not completed the exercise of consolidation of records of their forest lands under Rule 16(1) of the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam Rules, 2023. Rule 16 brings “forest-like areas” identified by the expert committees, unclassed and community forest lands under the protection of the conservation law.

The Bench reiterated that the expression “forest’’ would be understood according to its “broad and all-encompassing” dictionary meaning as held in its T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India and others judgment of December 1996 until further court orders.

The 1996 judgment, besides including forests as understood in the dictionary sense, had held that the expression “forest” in Section 2 of the original Forest Act of 1980 would cover all statutorily recognised forests whether they were designated as reserved, protected or otherwise. Forests and their conservation would apply to any area recorded as “forest” in the government record, irrespective of the ownership or classification. The 1996 judgment was reinforced by the top court in three subsequent orders in November 2023, February 2024 and as late as February 3, 2025.

The Supreme Court was hearing a challenge to the amendments made to the Forest Act in 2023. The petitioners have claimed that the amendments restrict the meaning of “forest” to two categories of lands, that is, those declared or notified as forests by law and areas recorded in government records as forests on or after October 25, 1980.

Petitioners, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Prashanto Chandra Sen and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, have argued that while the total coverage of forests in the country was in the vicinity of 7.13 lakh sq.km., about 1.97 lakh sq.km. would be excluded by the constriction introduced by the amendment. They contend that the dilution would create ecological imbalance.

Facing the heat, the Centre had agreed to not take any “precipitative action”.

For months now, the court has been waiting for the States and Union Territories to fulfil the 1996 judgment’s mandamus to form expert committees and submit consolidated records of their forest lands under Rule 16(1).

“The process of identification of forests is crucial to the implementation of the directions which were issued by this court. The purpose of identification is to ensure that areas which fell within the description of ‘forests’ would be capable of being preserved…” the court had explained in its November 2023 order.

Expert committees of every State and Union Territory have to identify forests irrespective of whether they were notified, recognised or classified under any law and irrespective of the ownership of the lands. These include the identification of earlier forests which were degraded, denuded or cleared. The identification would also cover plantation areas belonging to the government and private persons.

On Tuesday, the top court directed the States and Union Territories to complete the entire exercise in “letter and spirit” and submit a report to the Union government. The Centre would place the report before the Supreme Court.

Compensatory land

Mr. Sankaranarayanan, on a separate note during the hearing, drew attention to the order of the top court on February 3. In the order, the court had directed that “no steps will be taken by the Union of India or any of the States, which will lead to reduction of the forest land unless compensatory land is provided either by the State Government or the Union of India for the purpose of afforestation”.

The senior advocate said this may open a tiny window for governments to approach the top court with a plea to use forest land for linear projects on the promise of compensatory afforestation. Mr. Sankaranarayanan sought a clarification on this aspect of the February 3 order. The court however noted that it could not be expected to pass orders on assumptions.