No Right To Fell Trees Despite Ownership If Land Is Classified As Protected Forest: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has said that even if a person are lawful owners of land classified as protected forest under Indian Forest Act, they cannot fell trees on such land.

Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Sudeepti Sharma said, "even if assumingly the plaintiffs are owners of the suit land, yet therebys they cannot be permitted to fell the trees, as thereupons there would be an imminent cascading ill effect on the environment, whereas, for preservation thereofs Section 35 supra has been incorporated in the Indian Forest Act, 1927."

In 2008 the plea was filed by the plaintiffs, who claimed to own land marked as protected forest, seeking directions to the forest authorities to restrain from preventing the cutting of eucalyptus trees on the land. The Trial Court dismissed the plea and the decision was upheld by the appellate Court. The parties moved High Court challenging the decision.

After examining the submissions, the Court considered the question, "Whether the trees planted by the defendants on the land of the plaintiff-appellants can be permitted to be felled in terms of Section 35 of the Forest Act, 1927 and Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980?”

The bench noted that the suit land, where over the safeda trees are planted was declared to be a protected forest, therefore the statutory effects, would naturally “override the rights, if any, of the plaintiffs to claim that they have any right to fell safeda trees as exist over the suit land."

Referring to Section 35 of the Indian Forest Act, the Court opined that, "the felling of trees as exist over the suit land rather becomes statutorily barred, thus for bestowing the beneficient effects theretos vis-a-vis the environment, besides, when the notification supra does, also undo the ill effects of ecological imbalances, as may arise on the supra statutorily prohibited acts being permitted to be done over the suit land."

The Court observed that, "the statutorily prohibited acts cannot be permitted to be indulged into by the present appellants over the suit land as therebys the holistic disaster management mechanism as pronounced in the supra provisions rather would becomes completely jeopardised."

In light of the above, the plea was dismissed.

Title: Gajjan Singh and Anr v. State of Haryana and Ors

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 417

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