PANAJI
The NGT's order of January 7, 2016 had recorded that the revenue authorities and others concerned were to conduct an exercise of demarcation of the canopy densities of private forests, as judicially defined, for each land. Alternatively, the NGT decreed that the forest densities of 1997 should be ascertained. "A joint exercise would conveniently enable the demarcation of private forest areas in each land," the NGT said.
Norma Alvares of the Goa Foundation had submitted before the NGT that the Goa State Government had not yet taken the necessary steps to evolve a scientific method of demarcation of forest lands.
Hearing the government's appeal against the NGT order, the HC recorded that it found nothing wrong in the NGT directing that a committee be set up and to evolve a mechanism to demarcate private forests.
"There can be nothing exceptionable about any of this and we are quite unable to see how this order of January 7, 2016 can possibly lend itself to a challenge or an invocation of our jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. It is for the State Government to form the Committee required, to evolve the necessary internal mechanism and to then place the information and data before the NGT for final orders. We are informed that the matter is in fact before the NGT for final disposal," the HC recorded while adding that all contentions are left open before the NGT."
The NGT had directed the Government authorities and the higher authorities in the State Department such as Secretary of the Forest Department, Secretary of the Revenue Department and DSLR (Directorate of Settlement and Land Records) to constitute a committee within four weeks and evolve internal mechanism to demarcate private forest areas in each of the land which is recognised as full and private forest by Karapurkar-Sawant Committee.
