Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday constituted a committee comprising Deputy Commissioner of Mandi, the Superintendent of Police and the Secretary, district Legal Services Authority to look into the allegations relating to illegal felling of forest trees in forest division of Nachan in Mandi.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Ajay Mohan Goel passed the orders on a petition taken up suo moto by the Court as Public Interest Litigation, on a letter addressed to the Chief Justice, by one Raju of village Chail Chowk. The letter contained the details about how thousands of green trees have been felled under the nose of the state’s forest officials including Divisional Forest officer,who is posted in the area for the past five years and has been unable to stop the plunder of the green wealth. The petitioner alleged that roads have been constructed illegally by felling trees from extremely dense forest without clearance under the Forest Conservation Act. The forest area has been destroyed despite having a sanctuary region of about 10 Kms radius of Shikari Devi- Dehar Road. It has been further alleged that on the behest of DFO, a ground has been constructed at
Chail Chowk at a distance of about 100 meters from Rest House by destroying about 500 green trees.