The crackdown on illegal sand mining in the National Chambal Sanctuary is facing “practical constraints”, a report by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) in the Supreme Court said as the expert body assisting the court on environmental matters sought immediate orders for handing over revenue land falling within the sanctuary area to the forest department.
Event Context
The CEC proposed expanding the scope of the present petition and to widen its ambit to evolve a uniform national framework for prevention of illegal sand mining and regulation of riverbed mineral extraction in and around Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks, Tiger Reserves, Conservation Reserves, Community Reserves and Ramsar Sites. “Such a framework would ensure consistent implementation of environmental safeguards, strengthen inter-agency enforcement and provide long-term protection to India’s nationally and internationally significant riverine ecosystems,” the report said.
The CEC noted improvement on the ground but stressed upon timely filling of vacancies of forest guards, sustained financial support for surveillance infrastructure, periodic technological upgradation, regular ecological monitoring, strict district-level accountability, continuous inter-state coordination and adequate legal protection for frontline forest personnel.
Player Focus
Senior advocate Nikhil Goel assisting the court as amicus curiae along with advocate Rupali Samuel pointed out that the pace at which sand from the Chambal river is being extracted will have disastrous consequences on the surrounding ecosystem and human habitations. The court shared its anxiety on having an “autonomous monitoring mechanism” to ensure enforcement against illegal sand mining is “foolproof” for all times to come.
Team Analysis
The CEC, in its report filed early this week, said that the sanctuary spread across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have shown significant progress in curbing illegal sand mining by improving enforcement action. However, these measures are possible as the matter is currently under court monitoring. In the long run, such measures need to be institutionalised, for which the forest officials and guards, serving as the first line of defence, need to be empowered.
The report said, “A substantial portion of the National Chambal Sanctuary (NCS) comprises revenue and private land rather than notified forest land. This has resulted in practical constraints in the exercise of certain enforcement powers available under the Indian Forest Act, 1927.”
In the interaction with forest officials, the CEC was informed that since a major chunk of the sanctuary land is not a notified forest, the statutory power of seizure under Section 52 of the 1927 Act is not available in respect of such areas. This is proving to be a major obstacle in effective enforcement against illegal sand mining.
A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta reserved orders on the CEC report and posted the matter for August 4. It said, “Time has come that these lands are converted into forest land.” The report showed that the share of revenue land in the demarcated sanctuary area is 424 out of 435 square kilometres in Madhya Pradesh, 437 out of 635 sq kms in Rajasthan, and 676 out of 922 sq kms in Uttar Pradesh.
The court was hearing a suo motu petition on two news reports on illegal sand mining in Chambal river. One of the reports was by HT titled “Sandmining lays siege to a sanctuary” published on May 25.
The HT report had found that the Chambal riverbank inside the NCS, once the nesting site for the critically endangered gharials and accounting for nearly 80–90% of the entire global wild gharial population, was found to be degraded, with deep pits pockmarking the floodplain landscape.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju appearing for MP government said there are private lands within the sanctuary area, referring to the CEC report pointing to the presence of 173 villages in MP, 260 in Rajasthan and 130 in UP situated within the demarcated boundary of the national sanctuary.
The court said, “You may not touch private land. But declaring the revenue land within the sanctuary as forest will make a huge difference.”
The CEC also highlighted the issue of providing legal protection to forest officials who are required to confront the sand mafia, possessing sophisticated weapons. The report said that section 218(3) of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) requires prior sanction to prosecute a public servant charged with an offence committed in discharge of official duty. Noticing that similar notifications extending protection to forest guards in Odisha and Assam have yielded positive results, the CEC recommended the three states to extend this protection to forest officers within three months.
