New Delhi: Environmentalists, campaigners, and other stakeholders from across the Himalayas are sounding the alarm as the Lok Sabha prepares for a vital vote on the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 during the ongoing Monsoon session.
Among the most significant proposed changes to The Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980 are the addition of a preamble, the renaming of the Act to 'Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam,' the restriction of its applicability to lands recorded as forest in government records, and the exemption of specific categories of land.
To limit the FCA's applicability to only land officially recorded as forest would be to effectively overturn the Supreme Court's 1996 judgement in the TN Godavarman case, which held that the Act applied to land covered by the "dictionary meaning of forests" or "deemed forests" (forests not officially recorded as forest).—Inputs from Agencies