NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Thursday set aside the 2016 judgment of the Uttarakhand High Court, which had taken judicial notice of the frequent occurrence of forest fires and the devastation caused to forests, ecology, economy and the environment on the basis of news reports.
Agreeing with the State's submissions, the apex court held that the High Court's directions had lost their relevance over time and that the changed circumstances warranted a fresh look at the matter.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the State's appeal, set aside the High Court's order and directed the High Court to reconsider the matter. It said the High Court may issue fresh directions, if necessary, and monitor their implementation as required.
The Supreme Court also requested senior advocate Rajiv Datta to assist the High Court as amicus curiae.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, Datta submitted that several forest fires had occurred in May this year and that one of the major reasons was the lack of manpower to combat them.
Senior advocate Parmeshwar, appearing for the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), submitted that the policy framework was now in place and that monitoring remained the primary concern.
Appearing for the State, Deputy Advocate General Jatinder Kumar Sethi argued that forest fires were a natural and cyclical phenomenon. He said there was a spike in fires every alternate year due to a lack of precipitation and snowfall, but the overall trend showed a reduction in such incidents because of measures taken by the State government.
"This was evidenced by the fact that total incidents of fires in 2022 were 2,186, in 2023 were 773, in 2024 were 1,276, in 2025 were 268 and in 2026 were 654. The state had put in efforts of utilizing pine needles for the manufacture of brickets which was used for fuel and increased the honorarium to pine needle pickers as incentive. Moreover 12000 staff were deployed for dealing with forest fires and 5600 fire watchers were engaged," he contended.
The apex court was also informed that the State had, despite the stay granted by the Supreme Court, implemented most of the reasonable directions issued by the High Court. It was submitted that only the unreasonable directions required to be set aside and, therefore, the State's appeal should be allowed.
The High Court had appointed an amicus curiae and, after considering affidavits filed by the State and Central governments, issued a compendium of 26 directions. These included the formulation of a National Forest Policy, declaration of a 10-km Eco-Sensitive Zone around national parks and sanctuaries in the State, and a direction that no wild animals, including leopards and tigers, be declared man-eaters, among others.
The Supreme Court had earlier, on March 27, 2017, stayed the High Court's judgment on a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the State government. During the pendency of the matter, it had also impleaded the CEC as a party.
A writ petition filed by Rituparn Uniyal was tagged with the SLP, in which senior advocate Rajiv Datta had been impleaded as a party.