The Supreme Court said the political-bureaucrat nexus caused huge damage to forests (File)
The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Uttarakhand government for felling trees and illegally constructing inside the Jim Corbett National Park.
The court put an end to tiger safari in the core areas of the national park as it said the public trust has been thrown into the waste bin. However, it allowed safari tours in the buffer zones of the popular national park, citing the employment it generates. The tours should follow all necessary guidelines, it added.
The top court also pulled up former Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat and the former divisional forest officer (DFO), Kishan Chand, and ordered the Centre to form a committee that will recommend steps to mitigate the damages and recover the costs from those responsible.
The bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice PK Mishra, and Justice Sandeep Mehta was hearing a petition by environment activist and lawyer Gaurav Bansal.
Here's what the Supreme Court said in the matter:
The bench began with a quote from the epic Mahabharata and said, "The tiger perishes without the forest and the forest perishes without its tigers. Therefore the tiger should stand guard over the forest and the forest should protect all its tigers."
"We are surprised by the audacity of the minister and the DFO," the court said, adding, "They have, in blatant disregard of the law and for commercial purposes, indulged in mass felling of trees to construct buildings on the pretext of promotion of tourism."
"The unholy political-bureaucrat nexus has caused huge damage to forests and the environment," it said.
"The state should estimate the cost of damage and recover it from those guilty of damaging the ecology," it further said, adding, "We are of the view that the state cannot run away from the responsibility of restoring the status of the forest from when damage was done and recover it from the ones who committed the damage."