BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday issued notice to various state government authorities on a public interest litigation petition filed by a Tumakuru-based advocate, seeking direction to constitute Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) in all Gram Panchayats, taluks and districts across the state for conservation, protection and preservation of biodiversity.
A division bench of Chief Justice NV Anjaria and Justice KV Aravind issued notice to the Department of Forest, Environment and Ecology, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Karnataka State Biodiversity Board and Chief Executive Officer of Tumakuru Zilla Panchayat, after hearing advocate Ramesh Naik L, who filed a public interest litigation.
The petitioner, who is patron-in-chief of the Karnataka Progressive Farmers and Devarayanadurga Bio-diversity Protection Committee, stated that he had received a reply to an application under the Right to Information Act from the Karnataka State Biodiversity Board, that it has already constituted BMCs in all local bodies. Many of the BMCs' five-year terms had expired, though, hence it has been written to all CEOs of Zilla Panchayats to reconstitute BMCs within their jurisdiction.
The petitioner further stated that he had requested the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj to constitute BMCs in every Gram Panchayat, taluk and district, Tumakuru district in particular, in compliance with Section 41 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and amending Act 2023, but his request was not considered.
Naik also stated that he is a resident of a tribal village, Kadaranahalli Thandya, located adjacent to Narikkal Betta-Ramadevara Betta block of the state reserve forest, a sub-range of bio-diversity in Devarayanadurga in Tumakuru. But BMCs do not exist to protect biodiversity, including preservation of habitats, conservation of land races, folk varieties and cultivars, domesticated stocks and breeds of animals and microorganisms and chronicling of knowledge relating to biological diversity. It is a violation of Section 41 of the Act, he alleged.