New Delhi | Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday expressed hope that the Supreme Court verdict on the challenge to the very definition of "forest" contained in the "highly controversial" Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act will reaffirm the Godavarman judgement definition that has helped protect forests.
The former environment minister said the nation awaits the apex court's decision with its fingers crossed.
"On October 19, 2023, a group of retired Indian Forest Service officers and some others had filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the very definition of 'forest' contained in the highly controversial Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 that had been bulldozed through Parliament in July of that year," Ramesh said on X.
The public-spirited petitioners had argued and rightly so that the 2023 law dilutes the broader definition of "forest" as laid down by the Supreme Court itself in its very famous Godavarman judgment of December 12, 1996, and reiterated in a number of subsequent orders most recently in March 2024 and March 2025, the Congress general secretary said.
On September 16, 2026, in a little-noticed order on a related matter, the Supreme Court announced that it would give its final verdict on the October 2023 petition on December 8, 2026, he pointed out.
"Coincidentally, this would be four days prior to the 30th anniversary of the Godavarman judgment itself. The nation awaits with its fingers crossed," Ramesh said.
Will the Supreme Court reaffirm the Godavarman definition that has helped protect forests or will it uphold the 2023 dilution, he wondered.
"When forests across the country are facing such severe threats, the choice should be obvious. The decision will be a call to our collective ecological conscience," Ramesh said.
The Supreme Court on September 16 said it would confine itself to the challenge to the constitutional validity of definition of "forests" under the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act of 2023 and made it clear that disputes related to individual parcels of land will be dealt with by high courts.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana made the remarks while considering a plea of retired forest officer Ashok Sharma, who has challenged the validity of definition of "forests" under the 2023 law on the grounds it has a diluting effect on the definition given by the apex court in 1996.
"We are going by the definition of forests given by this court in 1996 in TN Godavarman case. Though Parliament in its domain has power to come with their own definition. We respect that and this is the area in which we will have to look whether there is any contradiction," the bench had said.