Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Supreme Court on Thursday declared illegal the allotment and subsequent sale of 11.89 hectares of Reserved Forest land in Kondhwa Budruk, Pune, originally granted to a private family and later transferred to a housing society.

A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai, Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice K Vinod Chandran not only quashed this specific allotment and associated environmental clearance but also issued pan-India directions for the constitution of Special Investigation Teams to crackdown on the misuse of forest land.

The Court held that the 1998 allotment of the forest land to the 'Chavan Family' for agricultural use and its subsequent sale to Richie Rich Co-operative Housing Society (RRCHS) in 1999 was “totally illegal.” The Court noted that even before the land was officially allotted to the Chavan Family, deals had already been struck with RRCHS, exposing the “front” arrangement used to bypass legal procedures.

The court ruled that these actions were in direct violation of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and its mandatory requirement of prior central government approval for diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes.

The Court noted that the then Revenue Minister sanctioned the allotment of the land to the Chavan Family without approval from the Central Government, in violation of Section 2 of the 1980 Act, despite repeated insistence of the Forest department that the land could not be allotted.

“we have no hesitation in holding that the then Minister for Revenue, Government of Maharashtra and the then Divisional Commissioner, Pune have acted totally in breach of public trust to illegally cause gain to private individuals at the cost of sacrificing precious Forest Land”, the Court observed.

The Court further quashed the environmental clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to RRCHS in 2007 for construction of “Raheja Richmond Park”, a Residential, Shopping and IT Complex.

The land, originally notified as Reserved Forest in 1879, had remained forest land as per official forest records despite being reclassified in revenue records. The Court found that attempts to show the land as de-reserved were fraudulent.

The Court directed that the possession of the disputed land, currently held by the Revenue Department, must be handed over to the Forest Department within three months.

The Supreme Court issued the following directions to all States and Union Territories to reclaim forest land:

1. Special Investigation Teams (SITs): Chief Secretaries of all States and Administrators of Union Territories must constitute SITs to investigate whether any reserved forest land under the control of Revenue Departments has been illegally allotted to private individuals or institutions for non-forestry purposes.

2. Recovery of Possession or Compensation: State governments and Union Territories must reclaim such lands and hand them over to Forest Departments. If reclaiming possession is not feasible in the larger public interest, authorities must recover the cost of the land from the beneficiaries and use the funds exclusively for forest development.

3. Special Teams for Implementation: States and UTs must also form Special Teams to ensure the completion of all land transfers within one year.

4. Future Use Restricted to Afforestation: The Court held stated that such reclaimed lands must only be used for afforestation going forward.

Case no. – Writ Petition (C) No. 202 of 1995

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 590

Case Title – In Re: T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad v. Union of India & Ors. (In Re: Construction of Multi Storeyed Buildings in Forest Land Maharashtra)

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