Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI:The SC adjourned the contempt plea filed against Goa Govt officials & Tamnar in the alleged illegal felling of trees at Sangod post-vacation.
“Supreme Court appeared severely unhappy with the felling of nearly 3,000 trees at Sangod when the matter came up for hearing today. Court was also unhappy that the matter was sought to be adjourned because Tushar Mehta (for Goa govt) was on his legs in another courtroom,” said Goa Foundation Director Claude Alvares.
Alvares informed that Court refused to issue notice on the application filed by Tamnar requesting exemption from the Court’s 4.2.2015 order prohibiting conversion sanads on lands above one hectare, having canopy density above 10%.
“The Court said they would hear the contempt petition first. The matter was posted without a date after the vacation,” he said.
The Goa Foundation last week filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court of India, asking for contempt action to be taken against the South Goa Collector, senior officials of the Forest Department, Chief Secretary and former Secretary to the CM, Krishnamurti, and Tamnar officials for deliberate violation of the Court’s orders forbidding conversion certificates for any land in excess of 1 hectare, and having a tree density of more than 10%.
The petitioner’s case that the Tamnar 400 kV HTL project promoters purchased over 10 ha of land in Sangod from private persons in 2018. However, the plot contained more than 2849 trees, 90% of which were forest species. In normal course, as the criteria for private forest were clearly met in this case, Tamnar was required to apply for forest clearance. It did not do so.
Pursuant to the government granting the exemption, the Forest Department issued the licence to fell 2849 trees. This was done to enable the Tamnar authorities to apply for conversion, thus bypassing the Supreme Court’s order of 4.2.2015. In fact, the application for a sanad was made more than one year after the trees were felled.
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