Former bureaucrats and forest officials have filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking intervention against the government’s unlawful implementation of the Compensatory Afforestation Scheme (CAS) on designated forest land.Under CAS, if forest land is diverted for non-forestry purposes, an equal area of non-forest land should be afforested to compensate for the loss. However, the petition stresses that the government’s current implementation of CAS violates a Supreme Court order dated 3 February 2025.In its interim order, the Supreme Court restrained the Centre and State governments from cutting down forest areas without providing compensatory land.“There have been multiple instances of compensatory afforestation being permitted on degraded notified forests, Revenue forests, and other unclassed forests that are statutorily protected, as per this Hon’ble Court’s directions in the Godavarman order of 12 December 1996. The order dated 3 February 2025 also prohibits such diversions,” the petition states.
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