#forest bench

Beneath the Redwoods 🌳

A winding forest path, connecting uni students to campus. Bridging planted redwoods, indigenous trees and the bumpy forest floor. A welcomed escape between classes.

This article was written after attending the hearing where Amicus Harish Salve suggested that the Supreme Court direct the Centre to set up one or more statutory authorities to ensure the country's forest policy is implemented "in letter and spirit".  

If Mr Salve’s suggestion is accepted by the bench, it would represent nothing less than the apex court returning administrative power over forests to the executive. Fourteen years ago, unhappy with how states and centre were managing forests, the apex court had stepped in. Over the past few weeks, the forest bench, comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia and Justices Aftab Alam and K S Radhakrishnan, has been rethinking its role. 

And then, there is Lafarge. 

The issue is whether Lafarge Umiam Mining should have sought a forest clearance while seeking environmental clearance in 2000 to mine limestone in the East Khasi Hills to feed a Lafarge cement plant in Bangladesh. Critics, like the SC’s Central Empowered Committee, say the company submitted a misleading Environmental Impact Assessment where it described the area it proposed to mine as “a near wasteland”. This assertion was found to be false in 2006 by the Meghalaya chief conservator of forests, who on a visit to the mining lease found the area had thick natural vegetation cover.

for its part, the company denies wrongdoing, and says that the convoluted structures of forest governance in india are to blame. a stance that the indian government is sympathetic towards, and has consequently been asking the Supreme Court to levy penalties but regularise the project.

in the process, however, a terribly important question has been raised.  

By mining limestone without a forest clearance, the company had violated the Forest Conservation Act and possibly the Environment Protection Act as well. Now... the Indian government is trying to regularise the project... The implications are unnerving. In part because if the government's proposal is accepted by the Supreme Court, it will create a precedent where any company can win clearances on the basis of misleading affidavits and later press for regularisation. And in part because the government evidently thinks it can apply India's laws selectively.