Congress hails SC's forest definition order, says INDIA bloc govt will protect environment
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Tuesday hailed the Supreme Court's interim order asking the states and Union Territories to act as per the definition of "forest" laid down by the top court in a 1996 judgment and said it is committed to protecting forests and environment when an INDIA bloc government is formed.
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said that after the "electoral bonds scam", the Supreme Court has stopped another set of "blatantly illegal and disastrous" Modi government schemes.
Former environment minister Ramesh also tagged a media report on the Supreme Court directing that the dictionary meaning of "forest" be applied.
He also shared another media report on the amnesty window opened for just six months in March 2017 to clear projects in a novel "violation category" that became routine through a Union Environment Ministry notification in July 2021, and provided ex-post facto approval to over 100 projects till the Supreme Court stayed the notification in January this year.
"The prime minister wanted to make it easier to hand over India's forests and pollute the environment, to benefit his corporate crony friends. So first, he changed the rules in 2017 so that projects that had violated their forest clearance could be legalised," Ramesh alleged.
More than 100 projects of big corporates, including coal mines, factories and cement plants, were allowed to brazenly start work in violation of environmental clearances, he claimed.
Next, in 2023, the Modi government brought the Forest Conservation Amendment, which stripped protection from 2 lakh square kilometres of forests, he said.
"This was in complete violation of a 1996 Supreme Court judgment. This amendment would have made it easy to divert 'deemed forests', as well as forests in the North East," he claimed.
"Thankfully, the Supreme Court has stayed both of these illegal moves. It has stayed the illegal permissions given to projects violating their environmental clearance, and has ordered that the dictionary definition of a forest must be followed, as per its 1996 decision," Ramesh said.
The Congress applauds this order, and commits to protecting India's forests and environment when we form an INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) government, he added.
"One by one, the scams and frauds of the Modi government are being exposed in India's highest court of law," Ramesh alleged.
Dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the amendments to the forest conservation law of 2023, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra on Monday directed the state governments and Union Territories to provide the details of the forest land within their jurisdiction to the Centre by March 31.
In its interim order, the bench asked the states and Union Territories to act as per the definition of "forest" as laid down by the top court in the 1996 judgment in the case of TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India.
It noted that the process of identifying land recorded as forests in government records is going on as per the amended law.
The petitioners had alleged that the wide definition of "forest" in the apex court judgment has been narrowed under Section 1A inserted in the amended law. As per the amended law, land has to be either notified as a forest or specifically recorded as a forest in a government record to qualify as a "forest".
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
