Trees are very precious to this State contributing to its great natural beauty, environment and ecological balance. We would only permit their felling if absolutely necessary for the preservation of life and property. We also take judicial notice of the fact that without any application, taking the law into their own hands, many culprits are indiscriminately felling trees, then converting the trunks into logs, uploading them to transport vehicles and doing commercial transaction with them on a large scale
By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 9: The High Court of Meghalaya has ordered the constitution of a three-member committee which will advise the state government on the steps to be taken to stop indiscriminate felling of trees across the state.
A writ petition was filed earlier seeking the court’s orders to stop illegal or irregular felling of trees in and around the Lower New Colony area, Laitumkhrah. Subsequently, the scope of the writ petition was expanded to cover the entire East Khasi Hills district.
During a hearing on Wednesday, a division bench comprising Chief Justice IP Mukerji and Justice W Diengdoh said the court had earlier directed the state respondents to disclose in an affidavit all pending applications for felling of trees in the East Khasi Hills district and later, an affidavit was duly filed which was considered by the court.
The court had sought a suitable explanation from the applicants on their submission in the applications that a particular tree or a group of trees needed to be felled as they “had become dangerous to life and property”.
“The State respondents were directed to inspect the trees covered by each and every pending application, process the application, take measures to preserve the tree or trees as far as possible and only sanction their felling if they had become so imminently dangerous that if allowed to stand for even some time, they would cause damage to life and property,” the court said in the order.
“We directed after consideration of the applications for felling of trees, a report to be filed by the respondents and further observed that not a single tree was to be felled till we considered the report, except on the above emergent contiguity,” the court further stated.
On perusing a report placed before the court on Wednesday, the court found that officers of the rank of Range Forest Officer or Beat Forest Officer have been processing the applications and they have recommended large-scale felling of trees on the ground that their position was such that they posed a threat to life and property.
“Trees are very precious to this State contributing to its great natural beauty, environment and ecological balance. We would only permit their felling if absolutely necessary for the preservation of life and property. We also take judicial notice of the fact that without any application, taking the law into their own hands, many culprits are indiscriminately felling trees, then converting the trunks into logs, uploading them to transport vehicles and doing commercial transaction with them on a large scale,” the court said.
It ordered that unless a particular tree is so imminently dangerous that it cannot be permitted to stand even for some time without causing danger to life and property, the local forest officials shall not permit felling of any tree.
Further, the court ordered that none of the pending applications mentioned in the report dated 9th April, 2025, shall be further proceeded with by ordering felling of any tree.
“The Chief Secretary of the State will constitute a Committee of three officials in which the Chief Conservator of Forests should be the first, an expert in Botany whether in government service or private service should be the second and a senior administrative officer not below the rank of Secretary the third, who shall advise the government with regard to the steps to be taken to stop indiscriminate felling of trees throughout the State. The government will act in accordance with such advice,” the court ordered.
It further directed that “the committee will scrutinise the report filed before the court which includes the applications to permit felling along with the report of the local forest officers, make their independent enquiry and issue necessary directions to the Forest department to fell the trees or to refrain from doing so or to take any measures for their preservation.”
“The committee will take district by district and deal with the applications for felling of the trees in those districts in accordance with law passing suitable directions binding on the respondents and the local forest officials.”
The court took note of the submission made by the Advocate General that the Meghalaya Tree (Preservation) Act, 1976 and the Meghalaya Tree (Preservation) Rules, 1976 applied to the Municipality and Cantonment area of Shillong and that the rest of the state is covered by the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 read with the Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2003 and any change in nomenclature thereof.
On the submission of the Advocate General, the court clarified that this order does not necessarily cover any case where the central government has accorded permission for forest clearance under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 for any development purpose or any direction made by it for deforestation, afforestation and so on.