The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 will come into force on December 1, the Union environment ministry said in a notification dated November 2, a move that comes at a time when 11 retired forest/environment and other civil servants and two environmental experts have challenged the new amendment in Supreme Court.
The 2023 Amendment Act will radically undermine India’s decades-old forest governance regime built around the implementation of the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 and based on the landmark 1996 order of t the apex court in the ‘TN Godavarman vs Union of India’ case and significantly restricts the scope of the FC Act by curtailing the definition of forest land that will fall within its ambit, the petition said.
The Supreme Court on October 20 issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the constitutionality of the recent amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act.
The government said the amendment aims to update the country’s forest conservation laws that are four decades old, eradicate a maze of ad-hoc definitions, bolster development and national security, all the while helping India fulfil its climate pledges by promoting agroforestry and increasing tree cover. The amendment covers only land that was declared or notified as a forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or under any other law. It also seeks to recognise only forest lands that were recorded as forests as on or after October 25, 1980 (when the forest conservation law came into effect).
In effect, this could leave out large swathes of land that are managed as forests by states but aren’t recognised as such. The new law also exempts strategic national security projects on land situated within 100 km of international borders, Line of Control and Line of Actual Control, from environmental clearances. This, experts fear, could endanger sensitive ecosystems in the Northeast, where entire states could fall under the 100km exemption. The act also exempts zoos and eco-safaris from green norms
“Forest lands which until recently enjoyed the protection of law due to this expansive interpretation provided by this Hon’ble Court will now be stripped of any legal protection,” the petition in the court states, adding that the 2023 Amendment Act unlawfully delegates what are essentially legislative functions to the government. Definitions of key terms and phrases such as “‘public utility project”, “strategic linear project”, “security related infrastructure” etc., are not provided in the law. Under the impugned law, the Central Government will implement the provisions of the amended Act through guidelines, directives and orders, not through a set of notified rules duly approved by Parliament. Such untrammelled powers will allow Central Government to permit diversion of forest lands without public or regulatory scrutiny, the petition argued.
When asked why unrecorded deemed forests were exempted from the purview of the amendment act and hence from legal protection, union environment minister, Bhupender Yadav said in an interview on August 12 that “the applicability of the Forest Conservation Act in various types of land has been dynamic”. “Initially provisions of the Act were being applied to the notified forest land only. Subsequently, after an SC judgement of December 1996, the Act was made applicable to revenue forest land or in lands which were recorded as forest in government records and to areas which look like forest in their dictionary meaning,” he added.
“Most such land was already put to non-forestry use such as habitations, institutions, roads, etc. with the required approval of the competent authority. This situation resulted in different interpretations of the provisions of the Act with respect to their applicability especially in recorded forest lands, private forest lands, plantations, etc. The government record for the purpose of the FC Act has been defined in the bill clarifying that all forests, including unclassed forests, recorded in the record of government, forest department local bodies, or authority will also attract the provisions of the Act,” the minister explained.
