GURUGRAM: A team of forest department on Monday razed 15 structures, most of them farmhouses and marriage halls, in Faridabad’s Ankir and Mewal Maharajpur areas as it began a demolition drive to clear protected Aravali land of illegal construction.
The department has identified 600 such illegal structures in Ankhir and Mewal Maharajpur villages of the district. Land in these villages falls under Section 4 (special orders) of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), which deems an area as forest land under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.
Officials said 71 notices were issued to owners of illegally building structures in October and November last year, along with 15 days’ time to demolish them on their own.
“We have now started the demolition drive to remove farmhouses and banquet halls. We will carry out the drive till all the structures built wrongfully on Aravali land are razed,” said Raj Kumar, divisional forest officer, Faridabad.
In December 2022, the state government carried out ground truthing — an exercise to verify data collected through aerial photography or satellite radar and ground visits – to identify illegal construction on the Aravalis. A total of 6,793 illegal structures were found in four Faridabad villages, of which 5,948 were in Anangpur, 399 in Ankhir, 313 in Lakkarpur and 193 in Mewla Maharajpur.
Action by the forest department is being taken on the basis of Supreme Court’s July 2022 ruling that land notified under Section 4 (special orders) of PLPA should be treated as forest land and will be protected under FCA.
This SC judgment — in the Narinder Singh vs Divesh Bhutani case — was based on appeals filed by property owners against a 2013 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had restrained any non-forest activities on PLPA-notified land in Anangpur. Another appeal that had been clubbed in the case was a petition against a notice to remove illegal farmhouses and banquet halls on forest lands in Anangpur, Ankhir and Mewla Maharajpur.
After SC’s order, Haryana additional chief secretary (forest and wildlife) Vineet Garg, on September 14 2022, issued directions to the Faridabad divisional forest officer to “prepare the list of structures, based on satellite image, drone-mapping along with ground report… so as to ensure that no unauthorised structures are left behind”.
Garg had also said owners of properties built before October 24, 1980 — when the Forest (Conservation) Act came into effect — would need to submit evidence of its construction to be exempt from the demolitions.
