Resolve forest panel dispute: apex court

The Supreme Court today asked the government to compromise and arrive at a decision to settle the long-standing dispute on the members of the Forest Advisory Committee...

The Supreme Court today asked the government to compromise and arrive at a decision to settle the long-standing dispute on the members of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC). The FAC is the apex body that deals with all clearances involving forest land. The last time it met was in December 2006 and since then 300-odd projects are pending clearances and awaiting the constitution of a new FAC.

The fight between the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the central empowered committee (set up by the Supreme Court to help it in dealing with forest cases) is over three non-official members that constitute the FAC. The apex court, which has been hearing the matter since August, 2006, disbanded the FAC in November, 2006. It directed that the committee be reconstituted and all 22 matters that the FAC looked into in its last setting be referred to the new committee.

“The larger purpose has to be kept in mind. These non-official members are there to protect the interest of the forests,” said Arijit Pasayat, one of the judges in the three-member special Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan. The court suggested that the government consider one of the nine names proposed by the central empowered committee — S C Sharma, former Inspector General of Forest and Shyam Chainani, a known conservationist. The ministry had earlier claimed that they were “enthusiastic laypersons” and did not have the technical expertise to be part of the “decision-making” committee.

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The matter is now listed for this Friday when the issue is expected to be resolved. The new FAC that will be constituted will have a tough job on its hands. On an average, about 30-40 projects come up in a month and they range from hydroelectric mining and irrigation to roads.

In recent times, things have come to such a pass that some of the parties, including the public sector undertakings in power, highway construction and mining have written to the PMO complaining about the stalemate.