HC directs Assam govt to install barbed wires, check posts to protect reserve forests

Guwahati, Aug 19: Directing the State government to ensure that a proper check mechanism is put in place to prevent further encroachment of reserve forest land, the Gauhati High Court on Monday suggested barbed wires at porous border areas and setting up of functional check posts.

"A proper check mechanism needs to be put in place which would prevent any illegal entry in reserve forest area. It could be by way of checking the entry points, putting barbed wires at porous borders and setting up of functional check posts," a division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury said in a judgement.

"All this (measures) would become effective only if the officers and persons managing such check posts do their job honestly and efficiently. If ever any such illegal entry is found, necessary penal action should be initiated against the officials," the court said, disposing a writ petition filed by settlers of Uriamghat.

Maintaining that allowing encroachers to live on protected forest areas will have a devastating effect causing complete ecological apocalypse, the court further said that if the State was serious about preserving forests, it ought to come out with a regulation whereby even the officers of the forest would be held responsible for any un-authorized or illegal entry in such reserve forests.

The court further said a review of the situation periodically would further help build a kind of institutional mechanism for preventing such unauthorized entry in reserve forest areas, and a constant surveillance of reserve forest area is required to ensure the encroachers do not enter again and spoil the "ecological balance".

Spelling out a guideline, the court said that if any such eviction drive is taken in future, the government should give a notice to the encroachers with a "reasonable time say 15 days" and "a further period of 15 days for exiting the place".

The court order will, however, not protect the encroachers from being prosecuted.

Earlier, the Advocate General told the court that around 29 lakh bighas of reserve forest land have been occupied by encroachers, and because of the intensive drive undertaken by the State government, more than 1 lakh bighas of land have been already cleared from encroachment.