SC Orders SITs to Reclaim Illegally Allotted Forest Land

• 19 May 2025

On 15th May 2025, the Supreme Court directed all States and Union Territories to form Special Investigation Teams (SITs) to examine if forest lands under their Revenue Departments were illegally allotted to private parties for non-forest activities.

Key Points

• SIT Formation Deadline: States and UTs must constitute SITs and complete the investigation and recovery process within one year.
• Land Reclamation: Forest lands found to be misallocated must be returned to the forest departments. If repossession is not feasible, the cost must be recovered and used for forest development.
• Afforestation Mandate: All reclaimed land must be used solely for afforestation going forward.
• Illegal Allotment in Maharashtra: The case involved 11.89 hectares of reserved forest in Pune illegally allotted in 1998 and sold to a builder, exposing a politician-bureaucrat-builder nexus.
• Legal Precedent Cited: The court reaffirmed that any forest land allotment post-12 December 1996 without Central Government approval is unlawful.
• Environmental Clearance Scrapped: The 2007 clearance granted to the builder by the Ministry of Environment and Forests was also quashed.