Restore mangrove forest at Kanjur dump in 3 months'

In a major setback for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Bombay high court on Friday ordered the civic body to return the dumping ground at Kanjurmarg to its original condition — a mangrove forest — within three months.

- Karuna Nidhi

MUMBAI:

The division bench of justices GS Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan struck down as illegal the 2009 de-notification of the 120-hectare plot as forest land and its conversion into a landfill for violating procedures laid down under the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980.

The court was hearing a plea filed by the nonprofit Vanashakti in 2013, which challenged the grant of environment clearance (EC) for a landfill on the plot adjacent to the Thane creek.

Though the plot was originally categorised as a protected forest, in April 2006, the high court had allowed the BMC to use it as a dumping ground following an assurance from the civic body that no mangroves would be destroyed in the process. However, on December 29, 2009, the entire plot was de-notified as forest land in contravention of due process stipulated under the Forest Conservation Act, the petition said.