The Supreme Court has warned Telangana officials of possible jail time if they fail to restore the forest cleared in Hyderabad’s Kancha Gachibowli area. The court took serious note of the pre-planned felling of trees, which it said took advantage of a long weekend to avoid judicial scrutiny.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said that the large-scale felling of trees next to the University of Hyderabad appeared to be “pre-planned” and warned the Telangana government to restore the area or face strict action, including possible jail time for officials. A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih said the state must choose between restoring the forest or risking imprisonment for its officials. The court took exception to the timing of the deforestation, which occurred during a long weekend when the judiciary was unavailable. “Prima facie, it appears that it was all pre-planned,” Chief Justice Gavai said. “Three days of holidays were coming, and you took advantage as the court would not be available,” he noted.
The bench took suo motu cognisance of the tree felling in the Kancha Gachibowli Forest and, on April 3, ordered a status quo to protect the remaining trees, pending further orders. Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Telangana government, assured the court on Thursday that no further activity was being carried out at the site and pledged to comply with the court’s directives “in letter and spirit.”
However, senior advocate K Parameshwar, acting as an amicus curiae, pointed to a report by the Forest Survey of India, which used satellite imagery to estimate that only 60 per cent of the 104-acre area where trees were felled contained moderately dense to heavily dense forest.
Court warns of contempt action
The bench warned that the state could face contempt action if it continued to defend the tree felling without taking corrective measures. “If you want to be saved from contempt, better take a decision to restore the forest,” the court told the state’s counsel. It added, “If you try to defend such a thing, the chief secretary and all those officers involved will be in trouble. You should not have indulged in this. Taking advantage of a long weekend, you do all this.”
Pushback over IT development plans
Singhvi argued that the state had filed a counter-affidavit and would address these concerns in court, suggesting that both ecological preservation and IT development could coexist. However, the bench pushed back, insisting that the issue was not about balancing development but about the “felling of thousands of trees taking advantage of the long weekend.”
Separate plea for student activists
During the hearing, an advocate said a group of whistleblower students, facing FIRs for their efforts to protect the forest, had filed an application. However, the bench clarified that the current proceedings were focused solely on the protection of the forest and suggested the students file a separate plea to raise their grievances.
The court scheduled the next hearing for July 23 and directed the state to submit a specific plan to restore the 100 acres of deforested land, a condition it said was necessary to shield the state’s top officials from “severe action.”
(With PTI inputs)