Environmental laws – Forests – Criteria issued by the State of Goa for the identification of private ‘forest’ land in the State of Goa – Challenge to, by the appellant seeking change in the criteria:
Held: Existing criteria for identification of private forests in the State of Goa are adequate and valid, thus, requires no alteration – Criteria of the canopy density of 0.4 and minimum area of 5 ha if reduced to 0.1 and 1 ha as contended by the appellant, would result in the plantations of coconut, orchards, bamboo, palm, supari, cashew, etc., grown by farmers on their private lands into the category of ‘private forest’ – Even for a minor development on the concerned land, the permission of the Government under the FCA 1980, for the landholders, would become indispensable – Also none of the States have adopted the 0.1 density criteria – Furthermore, on the one hand, the appellant is challenging the criteria adopted by the Sawant and Karapurkar Committees for the identification of inter alia private forests and on the other hand has relied on the same criteria, the the appellant cannot be permitted to approbate and reprobate – Also the appellant having not challenged the criteria as prescribed by the Expert Committee and published in the public notice is estopped from raising the said issue at this stage – Process of physical demarcation of such forests in State of Goa seems to have attained finality by virtue of the Reports and the State of Goa has issued a gazette notification notifying 46.11 sq. km. as private forest – Furthermore, the application of criteria cannot be universally standardized across the country, as it is contingent upon the specific geographical conditions prevalent in each State, and as a result, the criteria may vary from one State to another – Thus, the task of identifying forest areas expressly delegated to Expert Committees to be constituted by State Governments, thereby recognising that there can be no uniform criteria for such identification across the country. [Paras 63, 67-69] Environmental laws – Forests – ‘Forest Cover’ and ‘Recorded Forest Area’ – Distinction between:
Held: ‘Forest Cover’ encompasses all lands exceeding 1 (one) hectare in size with a tree canopy exceeding 10%, regardless of land use, ownership, and legal status – This category may encompass various features like orchards, bamboo groves, palm plantations, etc., and is evaluated through remote sensing techniques – Term ‘Recorded Forest Area’ or ‘Forest Area’ refers to all geographic areas officially designated as ‘Forests’ in government records – Recorded forest areas primarily include Reserved Forests and Protected Forests which are notified under the provisions of the Forest Act, 1927, or equivalent State Acts – Recorded forest area may also cover regions recorded as forests in revenue records or established as such under any State Act or local laws. [Para 66]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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