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07 Jul 2025, 1:57 pm

Former bureaucrats and forest officials have filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking intervention against the government’s unlawful implementation of the Compensatory Afforestation Scheme (CAS) on designated forest land.

Under CAS, if forest land is diverted for non-forestry purposes, an equal area of non-forest land should be afforested to compensate for the loss. However, the petition stresses that the government’s current implementation of CAS violates a Supreme Court order dated 3 February 2025.

In its interim order, the Supreme Court restrained the Centre and State governments from cutting down forest areas without providing compensatory land.

“There have been multiple instances of compensatory afforestation being permitted on degraded notified forests, Revenue forests, and other unclassed forests that are statutorily protected, as per this Hon’ble Court’s directions in the Godavarman order of 12 December 1996. The order dated 3 February 2025 also prohibits such diversions,” the petition states.

The petitioners submitted records from the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) meeting held in Ranchi, revealing that degraded notified forests and unclassed lands continue to be offered for compensatory afforestation.

“The analysis of the minutes from the FAC meeting (5 March 2025) and the Regional Empowered Committee (REC) meetings in Ranchi (10 February and 27 March 2025), held after the 3 February 2025 order, clearly shows that degraded notified forest lands and unclassed forest lands are still being allocated for compensatory afforestation,” the petition adds.

The Union government recently amended the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, renaming it the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Act, 2023 (The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023). The amendment has faced criticism since its draft stage, with experts warning it promotes large-scale deforestation and may reduce potential forest areas.

Shortly after, former bureaucrats challenged the validity of the Act in court. In February last year, then Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud upheld the validity of the 1996 T.N. Godavarman Judgment, which defines ‘forest’ according to its dictionary meaning and mandates conservation.

The petition highlights the extent of double damage caused by diverting forest land for compensatory afforestation.

It states, “The use of forest land for compensatory afforestation causes destruction twice over of the country’s natural forests: first, by diverting notified forest lands for non-forest purposes through the forest clearance process under the Forest Conservation Act; and second, by converting non-notified or degraded forest land into plantations as compensatory afforestation, ignoring the poor ecological value of plantations compared to biodiverse forests.”