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Supreme Court Censures Uttarakhand CM Over Rajaji Tiger Reserve Appointment
The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami’s decision to appoint Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Rahul (who uses his first name only) as Director of Rajaji Tiger Reserve after the same officer was previously removed from Corbett Tiger Reserve over allegations of illegal tree cutting [In Re: [Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union of India and Ors. ].
;In a landmark judgment of the present case on Bench of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra, KV Viswanathan strongly disagreed the mere capricious act done by the Chief Minister and strongly insisted on the behalf of public trust doctrine.
”We are not in a feudal era jahan jo bhi raja bole. .. (We are not in a feudal age where whatever the king says) At least there should have been some application of mind with reasons in writing when he differed from his Minister and Chief Secretary Just because he is Chief Minister can he do anything? Either that officer should be exonerated or the departmental proceeding dropped There is something called public trust doctrine,” The
The bench consist of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, Justice BR Gavai and Justice KV Viswanathan
Supreme Court
It is seen that there are only three current Supreme Court Justices namely: Prashant Kumar Mishra, BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan.
For the State government, Senior Advocate ANS Nadkarni supported the Chief Minister’s move asserting that only appointment of Governor and Judges which the Chief Minister could not make.
First, the Bench thought about ordering the Chief Minister to submit an affidavit explaining the above decision. However, the Bench agreed not to put that in order after submissions from the counsel and the State assures the Bench that explanation will be proffered next time.
The Court made the remarks when delivering its judgement on forest issues after receiving report from the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) which was established by the Supreme court to deal with all matters pertaining to forests.
Based on the report, the appointment of the officer per se, had not given confidence to the stakeholders involve in wild life conservation as depicted above.
The report said that the issue regarding anomalies in Corbett Tiger Reserve is still subjudice in the apex court and disciplinary action against the officer, also under consideration as of the date of the report.
It also drew wide attentiveness to the fact that it also under investigation in CBI and that despite of this, the State has not completed the disciplinary proceeding and appointed him as Director at Rajaji Tiger Reserve.
