The Telangana government faced a rap from the Supreme Court in the dispute over the Kancha Gachibowli land parcel near the University of Hyderabad. Going by Chief Justice BR Gavai’s observations, concerned government officials will go to jail if the deforested portion of the forest area is not restored. The matter is sub judice, and this is the inference drawn from the court hearing on May 15. What the government informs the court at the next hearing on July 23 is in the realm of the unknown for now.
For the government, it is a complicated maze. It would have been easier if it were a simple case of withdrawing a decision. The government wanted an IT park and an eco-park on the 400-acre land parcel it managed to acquire after a nearly two-decade dispute over its ownership ended in its favour. In the meantime, the parcel, adjacent to a protected forested region, developed all the hallmarks of a forest, at least enough to be deemed one, as per the Supreme Court verdict in the TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India case. So, it was not, as the government initially argued, about ownership. Sure, it does own the land, but it ought not to have sent bulldozers over a weekend and razed down about 1,500 trees, including nearly 1,399 exempted ones. The court-appointed Central Empowered Committee, which submitted its report, made this clear enough and even recommended that the land parcel be declared a forest and overseen by the forest department. We must also point out that in these past few months, the state government has raised ₹10,000 crore through bonds by putting up the land as collateral.
This case transcends the disputed 400 acres. It strikes at the heart of India’s failing environmental governance, where the absence of specific land-use laws enables such precipitous acts in the name of “development”. The implications of the Supreme Court’s verdict will be profound. Should the court uphold the forest designation of this land, a precedent will be set that ecological reality trumps a bureaucratic attempt to determine forest status. That would strengthen the student-led conservation efforts. However, clarity is needed on whether the government’s “public interest” argument for acquiring the land for its IT park trumps the need to preserve green spaces.