Telangana HC: No Need for Central Nod for Forest Land Diversion Before 1980
HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court has made it clear that forest land, which had been diverted for non-forest purposes before the commencement of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, does not require the approval of the Union government to denotify them from the reserved forest category.
A division bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Anil Kumar Jukanti made this clear while dealing with a 2009 petition filed by the NGO Forum for Better Hyderabad, which challenged diverting about 2,400 acres to non-forest purposes without de-notifying it and obtaining permission from the Centre. This land was part of the 4,067 acres of forest in Imarat Kancha, Maheswaram mandal in Rangareddy district. It was purchased by the forest department in 1956 from the estate of HEH the Nizam and was later notified under the AP Forest Act, 1967.
The petitioners challenged the alienation of the land by the then state governments between 2000 and 2008 to companies like Indu Tech Zone, Gitanjali Gems, HCL Infosystems, Aga Khan Academy, Astra Microwave systems, Kernex Microsystems, Ananth Technologies, Brahmani Infratech, AP Housing Board and others. The petition was heard recently by the division bench. Senior counsel Gandra Mohan Rao argued that the forest land needed prior permission of the Union government if used for non-forest purposes.
Md. Imran Khan, additional advocate general (AAG), argued that the land was used for non-forest purposes even in the 1960s and there was no necessity to take permission from the Centre under the Forest (Conversation) Act, 1980, which came into force later.
Khan brought to the notice of the court the clarification of the Union ministry of environment and forests when the state government had sought Centre’s permission to de-reserve 3.1 hectares of forest land in the Sirchelma reserve forest block in Adilabad district.
He said that in view of the expansion of the city and the fact that several industries had come up, the court’s intervention at this point was unwarranted.
The bench dismissed the petition and observed that there was delay and latches in the public interest litigation as well and the court could not disturb the third-party interest created on account of delay.
