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On Earth Day, court saves forest land

JAIPUR: In a pro-environment ruling coinciding with Earth Day, the Rajasthan High Court has ordered maintenance of the status quo on a 300-acre plot of village land developed as a forest in the vicinity of the Nahargarh wildlife sanctuary falling in Daulatpura in Amber tehsil near the Capital.

Thousands of trees standing on the plot were under threat of the axe falling on them after the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) handed over the land to a private company -- International Amusement & Infrastructure Private Limited -- in January this year for development of a “mega tourism city”.

A Division Bench of the High Court, comprising Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice R.S. Rathore, acting on a petition in public interest filed by an 80-year-old, Mohan Lal Sharma, in their order citied the observations of the Chief Conservator of the Forest (CCF) that the entire area had been developed as a dense forest and it stood adjoining the Nahargarh Wildlife Sanctuary.

After examining the matter in March 2007, the CCF had reported to the State’s Principal Conservator of Forests that the area had become a permanent habitat to leopards, hyenas, civets and blue bulls and a corridor for movement of wildlife. He had also made the observation that forestation had been carried out on the land with funds from the Centre and the Japanese Government. “The use of land for any other purpose would be a violation of the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972,” the CCF had observed.

Environmentalist lawyer and counsel for petitioner Girdhari Singh Bafna pleaded that the allotment of land amounted to a land scam. Apart from violating various provisions of the Constitution and the conservation laws, the deal amounted to giving away land at throwaway prices.

The land, valued at Rs.600 crores, was given at Rs. 48 crores at the rate of Rs.396 per sq. metre and the deal smacked of a “public land scam”, he said. As per the Master Plan 2011 also the land was not meant for any such activity as it fell within the Ecological Zone, he pointed out.

Daulatpura, falling on the north side of Nahargarh sanctuary -- which came up through a notification in September 1980 -- was notified as a reserve forest under Section 20 of the Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953, in November 1961. The JDA after examining the application from the private company noted that the land in question was recorded in the revenue documents as “charagah” (grazing land). In contrast, the Deputy Conservator of Forest, who surveyed the khasra numbers in question, reported that the area fell within the forest boundary.

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