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Case title: In Re: TN Godavarman Thirumalpad vs Union of India & Ors.

Case no.: Writ Petition Civil No. 202 of 1995

Decided on: 24.01.2024

Quorum: Hon’ble Justice B.R Gavai, Hon’ble Justice Arvind Kumar, Hon’ble Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra.

 FACTS OF THE CASE:

The criteria set forth by the State of Goa and others for designating “forests” within the state are at the root of the current appeals.

The Bombay High Court held in Shivanand Salgaocar v. Tree Officer & Ors. that all lands, whether owned by the government or privately, were subject to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. The State of Goa’s Conservator of Forests established guidelines in 1991 for determining what constitutes “forest” on private properties.

In the case of T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, the Court ruled on December 12, 1996, that, for the purposes of Section 2(i) of the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, “forest” refers to “all statutorily recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise,” and that this understanding should be based on the dictionary definition. The Tennessee Godavarman Case ordered all States to form an expert committee to determine what constitutes a “forest” and where it is located.

The Goa government established the Sawant Committee in 1997 to carry out the directive, designating 46.89 square kilometres of private forest. In 2000, the Karapurkar Committee was formed to determine the remaining areas. The current appellant, Goa Foundation, filed a Writ Petition with the court contesting the Karapurkar Committee’s appointment after the committee recommended a revisit to omit some of the forest areas previously identified by the Sawant Committee. Concurrently, the Karapurkar Committee presented its concluding report, outlining 20.18 square kilometres of privately owned forest.

However, the task of both Committees was incomplete because some areas remained unidentified, and the court dismissed the writ petition.

The appellant filed a Writ Petition seeking directions from the State Government of Goa to complete the process of identifying forests and degraded forest lands in accordance with this Court’s order dated 12.12.1996.

The State Government formed two new committees to identify the remaining private forest areas in the North and South Goa districts that had not been identified by previous committees.

The Appellant filed another Writ Petition in the High Court of Bombay, seeking to overturn the canopy density criteria, which should not be less than 0.4. The Appellant contended that the failure to consider forest areas with canopy densities of 0.1-0.4 (10-40%) violated the criteria allegedly accepted by this Court in the case of TN Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India & Ors. dated 28.03.2008.

The State of Goa again formed two Committees13 to identify the balance areas of private forests that had not been covered by the previous Committees.

The Bombay High Court transferred both Writ Petitions to the NGT on October 17, 2013, renaming them Application No.14 (THC) of 2013 and Application No.16 (THC) of 2013. The NGT dismissed both applications in the impugned order, and thus the appellant is before this Court.

LEGAL PROVISIONS:

The Court clarified that in accordance with the dictionary definition, “forest” refers to “all statutorily recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected, or otherwise” for the purposes of Section 2(i) of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. The Court proceeded to explicate that the phrase “forest land” as used in Section 2 encompasses not only the dictionary definition of “forest,” but also “any area recorded as forest in the Government record, regardless of ownership.”

And the appellant has filed these civil appeals under Section 22 of the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010.

ISSUES:

Whether it is necessary to change the forest identification standards that the Goa government established?

APPELLANTS CONTENTION:

The appellant’s counsel argued that the tribunal erred in failing to issue a merits order based on the fact that the issue is before this Court.

They contended that the identification of private forests on the basis of criteria accepted by FSI and this Court in the order of 2008 passed for determining Net Present Value should also be adopted and followed for forest identification, which would be in the interest of environmental protection and a step towards implementing the order dated 12.12.1996 passed by this Court, which has yet to be met by the State of Goa.

The Appellant also requests that the criteria for identifying private forest/deemed forest on private lands in the State of Goa be revisited using the parameters used by FSI, which are based on 0.1 density forest in an area of 1 hectare.

RESPONDENTS CONTENTION:

According to the respondent(s), res judicata rules render the criteria for forest identification final and unchallengeable. In 1991, the Bombay High Court decided in the Shivanand Salgaonkar case (Bombay High Court decision dated 27.11.1990) what the criteria for identifying forest was.

It was also argued that the criteria for forest identification, which serve as the foundation for the Sawant, Karapurkar reports, were first proposed by the State of Goa’s Forest Department in 1991. The Forest Department proposed a crown density of 40% and a minimum area of 5 ha because conserving small patches of forest land was not sustainable in the long run.

The counsel for the respondents argued that the State of Goa (Sawant and Karapurkar Committees) adopted the aforementioned criteria in 1991 in compliance with this Court’s order dated 12.12.1996 in T.N. Godavarman.

Finally, the counsel for the respondent(s) submits that the criteria for identifying forests and the processes used by different states are governed by an Order issued by this Court on December 12, 1996, in the TN Godavarman case. The Court directed the State Government to develop the criteria based on their local situation, taking into account the fact that Forest, as a concurrent subject, must be determined as such by the State Government in order for the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 to be applicable.

COURT ANALYSIS AND JUDGMENT:

The court determined that the state of Goa’s current standards for designating private forests are sufficient and legitimate, negating the need for revisions. Insofar as they exempt the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 from application on areas less than 1 hectare and require the cutting of no more than 75 trees, the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change guidelines and the Scheduled Tribes & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 are unambiguous and clear.

The court further held that, acknowledging that there cannot be consistent standards for such identification throughout the nation, this Court specifically assigned the task of identifying forest areas to Expert Committees to be formed by State Governments in its order dated 12.12.1996, recognising this fact.

They conclude that the current appeals are not worthy of being accepted in light of the previously stated information. Accordingly, the same position is rejected and the contested order dated July 30, 2014 is upheld.

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Written by – Surya Venkata Sujith