No independent member in key environment panel: Experts
The outcome of a petition on the Forest Conservation Amendment Act 2023 'may possibly be compromised considering the conflict of interest' of the CEC, the group has claimed in a letter to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. 'In 2023, since Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) seemingly had complete autonomy in choosing the members of the CEC, it nominated in all the four posts of members, four former government officers, three of whom are retired Indian Forest Service officers and one, a retired scientist, who had also worked for many years until his retirement in the MoEFCC. There are no independent experts.'
HT had reported on September 8, 2023 that the Union environment ministry has issued a notification constituting a permanent authority to be known as 'Central Empowered Committee' in response to a Supreme Court order, dated August 18, which said instead of an ad hoc body, CEC should be instituted as a permanent statutory body on environmental issues.
The permanent CEC now replaces an ad hoc body that the Supreme Court had directed to be created at the national level in 2002 for monitoring the implementation of top court's orders related to forests, wildlife and conservation and to place the non-compliance of cases before it, including those related to encroachment removals, implementation of working plans, plantations etc. But the structure of CEC is vastly different from the previous CEC. It is far more centralised leaving no space for independent members.
The CEC was constituted in 2002 by MoEFCC on the directions of the Supreme Court for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the orders of Supreme Court on matters of forests and wildlife and to provide technical advice. It consisted of three former officers of the ministry, and two independent members, the first, an expert on forests and wildlife and the other, an advocate of the Supreme Court who is also an environmentalist.
Two of the current members of the CEC have held the topmost forest and wildlife posts under the government of India, that of Director General and Special Secretary and have retired recently. CEC members include chairman, Siddhant Das, former DG, forests; CP Goyal, former DG forests; Sunil Limaye, former principal chief conservator of forests; JR Bhatt, former lead climate change negotiator for India and Bhanumathi G, Assistant Inspector General of Forests (AIGF) at National Tiger Conservation Authority.
Previously, CEC has had independent members such as tiger expert Valmik Thapar and Supreme Court advocate Mahendra Vyas. They were appointed in 2002 with a five-year tenure as per the 2002 notification. Thapar completed his tenure and moved on, while Vyas continued to be an independent member till 2022.
A CEC which is comprised of officers who had held the highest positions in the MoEFCC, and were closely involved in policy making, can hardly be expected to give independent advice to the Supreme Court, advice that is different from what they gave while they were in the government. In 2023 a writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court by a group of individuals challenging the Forest Conservation Amendment Act (FCAA), 2023, as, according to them, the Act would hasten the decline of forests in India, already greatly reduced since a decade or two earlier. In hearings in this case, so far, the Supreme Court has given four landmark orders, upholding the definition of forests as per the Godavarman order of 1996 and directing that such forests be identified and georeferenced as per the SC orders of 1996 and 2011 (Lafarge case),' the officers wrote.
'The case is pending for a final hearing and decision in the Supreme Court. However, we fear that the outcome of this case, as well as those of others filed against the FCAA 2023, may possibly be compromised considering the conflict of interest of the CEC, and the likelihood that the Supreme Court may give weight to the advice of the CEC before taking a final decision in the matter,' they added.
'We would like to point out that the Forest Conservation Amendment Bill 2023 was prepared and defended before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) by a CEC member then at the helm in the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change. The Forest Conservation Amendment Act (FCAA) 2023 which is being challenged in the Supreme Court, was also notified at that time, as were the rules under the Act and the consolidated guidelines,' the letter cautioned.
The letter pointed to the SC's recent order on 'zudpi' forests (scrub forests) of Maharashtra that relied heavily on the CEC's advice which recommended the untrammelled use of such forests for 'compensatory afforestation' considering 'zudpi' forests as ecologically inferior forests as they cannot support thick stands of forest trees.
HT reported on May 24, 2023 that the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 could jeopardise vast tracts of ecologically important forests and leave out several so-called unclassed forests that cover around 15% of India's total forest cover, citing a report by a high-level working group constituted by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy on the bill .
The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, exempts 'unrecorded deemed forests' from being recognised under the modified law on forest conservation. The objective of the act was to review and limit a Supreme Court verdict in the TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs. Union of India & Others case on December 12, 1996, which directed that 'forests' would not only include those understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in government records irrespective of the ownership.
In 2023, 11 retired government officials, including some from the forest and environment departments and two environmental activists challenged the new amendment in the Supreme Court. The apex court gave an interim order on February 19, 2024 upholding the order of the 1996 Godavarman judgement which defined forests as per the dictionary meaning of the word irrespective of ownership.
HT reached out to MoEFCC and CEC chairman Siddhant Das, but did not get any responses to requests for comments.
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