Consequently, an appeal was filed in Supreme Court in 2020 against the NGT order.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, directing authorities to conduct survey and demarcation be conducted within a period of 8 weeks in respect of the area falling in three patches of the Jilling estate, wherein the density of forest appeared to be 40% or more.
The Court Commissioner had found that about 8.5 hectares out of the entire Estate, i.e. 36 hectares constituting Jilling Estate, appeared to have a high density of forest cover in the range of 40% or more.
The Supreme Court had directed the conduct of survey and demarcation in terms of the direction contained in clause (vi) of the conclusions drawn in the report of the Court Commissioner Shri Bikram Singh Sajwan.
The demarcation was necessary to determine, whether the same would, eventually, be classified as ‘Deemed Forest’ in terms of the judgment passed by the Supreme Court in TN Godavarman vs. Union of India.
However, the same was not done yet, the Court said.
“The said non-compliance of the order of the Supreme Court as well as our order constitutes contempt of Court. The direction to carry-out survey and demarcation was issued by the Supreme Court as early as on 11.02.2020. However, before we proceed to take action under the Contempt of Courts Act against the erring officers, we consider it appropriate to grant them one more opportunity to strictly comply (in two weeks).”
Source: Barandbench
