PANAJI
The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday halted the conversion of 855 survey numbers identified as private forests, citing concerns over deforestation in Goa.
“We know how forests are being destroyed,” Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said, stopping further conversion sanads. The Court gave the respondent four weeks to file a counter affidavit and scheduled the next hearing for March 28.
Expert committees led by V T Thomas and Francisco Araujo classified these lands as private forests in 2018.
An environmental NGO noted this was the second SC bench to criticise the State’s environmental policies.
Despite no trees being cut yet, sanads were being issued. The NGO challenged the state’s decision to treat all identified private forests as “provisional,” taking the case to the NGT and then SC.
