Social activist Gireesh Achar has filed a criticism earlier than the southern zone of the Ministry of Atmosphere, Forest and Local weather Change (MoEF&CC) towards former IAS officers Madan Gopal and T M Vijaya Bhaskar for de-notifying 9,934.02 acres of forest land in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district between 2015-2017.
In his criticism filed on September 29, the Shivamogga-based activist mentioned that although the Forest Conservation Act makes it necessary for the state authorities to hunt the Union authorities’s approval earlier than de-notifying or changing forest areas, the identical didn’t occur on this case. Achar has requested the MoEF&CC to direct the authorities to withdraw all of the de-notification orders and provoke an enquiry towards the previous IAS officers. Achar additionally raised the problem earlier than the Karnataka Lokayukta on September 1, searching for motion towards the 2 former IAS officers.
Calls made to Gopal and Bhaskar weren’t answered. Whereas Gopal is presently the chairman of the Karnataka Eco Tourism Board, Bhaskar is chairman of the Administrative Reforms Fee.
Achar’s criticism (a duplicate of it has been shared with indianexpress.com) factors out that 56 notification orders have been issued on November 17, December 14 and December 19 in 2015; on July 19, September 28 and November 23 in 2016; and on February 23 in 2017 to de-notify the reserved forest/forest space measuring 9934.02 acres.
Gopal and Bhaskar issued the mentioned 56 de-notifications underneath Part 28 of Karnataka Forest Act, 1963, mentioned Veerendra Patil, an advocate representing Achar. “They contended that no permission was required from the Union authorities for issuing de-notifications. Nevertheless, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, Part 2 clearly talks concerning the ‘restriction on the de-reservation of forest or use of forest land for non-forest functions’. No state authorities or different authority shall make any change besides with the prior approval of the central authorities,” Patil added.
Patil defined that the central authorities on Could 5, 1996, accepted the diversion of 14,848.83 hectares of forest land in Sagar forest division in Shivamogga district to rehabilitate farmers who misplaced their land to the Sharavathi Reservoir Undertaking.
“The encroachments made earlier than 1978 have been regularised by the Union authorities. The Forest Conservation Act was enacted within the yr 1980 after which it was made necessary that any diversion of forest land would require the prior permission of the central authorities. So the de-notifications made by the previous IAS officers within the interval between 2015-2017 are unlawful and violate the Forest Conservation Act,” Patil added.
“It’s not virtually potential to problem all of the 56 de-notifications herein. Petitioner challenged one de-notification earlier than the excessive court docket of Karnataka in 2019. On March 4, 2021, the court docket handed an order quashing the de-notification dated 23.02.2017,” Achar mentioned in his criticism.