Godavarman, and the Dictionary Meaning of Forest

In one line

A writ petition about felling in the Nilgiris turned into a continuing mandamus that has governed Indian forest land for nearly thirty years, and its first order decided what the word "forest" means.

The problem the order solved

Section 2 of the Van Adhiniyam speaks of "forest land" and does not define it. Section 1A, which now says what land the Act covers, was inserted only in 2023. For forty-three years the Act operated on an undefined word, and States took the convenient view that "forest land" meant land recorded as forest in their own revenue records and notified under their own forest law.

The consequence was that the Act missed most of the forest in India. Land that had never been notified, land recorded as revenue waste, land privately owned and covered in natural growth, and forest transferred to another department were all outside the Act on that reading, and could be diverted by a State order without anybody's approval.

What the Court held

T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad, a former ruler of the Nilambur estate, petitioned in 1995 against illegal felling. On 12 December 1996 the Supreme Court passed the order that changed the statute's reach.

The holding, as the Court itself recorded it fifteen years later, is that as per the order dated 12 December 1996, "forests" has to be understood in terms of the dictionary meaning. That sentence appears in the judgment of 6 July 2011 in T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India (the Lafarge case), (2011) 7 SCC 338.

The facts of that later judgment show the order working. Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Limited worked a captive limestone mine at Nongtrai in Meghalaya supplying a cement plant in Bangladesh. The project proponent had to obtain a certificate from the local Divisional Forest Officer that the mining site was not a forest area as per the Court's order of 12 December 1996 and did not fall within any notified reserved or protected forest, and the environmental clearance of 9 August 2001 recorded that no forest land was involved, the proponent's rapid EIA report having described the land as wasteland. In 2006 the Chief Conservator of Forests (Central) found the lease area surrounded by thick natural vegetation, the Ministry directed closure on 30 April 2007, and stage I forest clearance was granted only on 22 April 2010. The Court saw no reason to interfere with the clearances, confining that result to the facts, but declared that the National Forest Policy, 1988, must necessarily govern the grant of permissions under section 2 of the Act, held that what a court reviews is the decision-making process rather than the decision, said that the Central Government should appoint a National Regulator, and laid down guidelines for future cases including geo-referenced district forest maps.