Shut resorts in tusker corridor: Experts

NEW DELHI: The battle over removing hotels and resorts from the only corridor linking elephants in the Eastern and Western Ghats has got shriller. Experts on board the prime minister-led National Board of Wildlife (NBW) have written a joint letter to senior forest officials warning that they could be in contempt of court if they overrode the unanimous expert advice and set up yet another committee to review the Madras High Court decision that demanded removal of the resorts.

The Madras HC had ordered that the land falling in the Sigur corridor be taken over by the forest department and the resorts be demolished. The HC had ordered shutting down all the resorts in the belt and said the guest house owners had indulged in eco-destruction in the name of eco-tourism.

A bulk of resort owners took the case to the Supreme Court which asked the standing committee of the NBW to give its comments on the expert committee’s report on which the Madras HC had based its orders on. It noted, “It is open to the National Board for Wildlife to offer their comments on the report submitted by the committee constituted by the high court.”

The standing committee is chaired by the Union environment and forests minister and is stacked with senior forest officials and non-government wildlife experts. In a meeting, the experts agreed with the report and recommended that the land should be cleared of the resorts. But the forest officials suggested that yet another committee be set up on the issue. The issue was deferred with the minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, asking for more time to study the matter and come back to the group with the issue. It was decided that the ministry would seek some more time from the apex court to come back with its comments.

Now, in a joint letter, the experts have warned that the NBW could fall foul of court orders if it sought to review the results of a court-appointed committee without any mandate.

The experts shot off the letter, sources said, apprehending that the forest officials would use the delay in comments from the standing committee to set up yet another committee or site visit. Their letter reads, “We, therefore, humbly request that in the affidavit to the Hon'ble Supreme Court for seeking more time, the justification should not be the need to constitute another committee or site visit etc. We place on record that the undersigned members did not agree and in fact opposed the idea of forming another committee.”

The experts have also noted that the records of the meeting, when the Sigur corridor was discussed, did not reflect that all the experts were against setting up another committee. They wrote, “We wish to reiterate that all the undersigned members and not only Dr Divyabhanusinh Chavda, concur with the findings and recommendations given in the detailed report of the expert committee… including all the areas identified.”