The government of Mumbai, put in an awkward situation by the Bombay high court’s landmark order on conservation of private forest land, has come up with a face-saving formula which it will submit to the Supreme Court. It proposes to ask the court to waive two of the three conditions imposed on anyone indulging in non-forest activity (like construction) on forest lands in violation of the Forest Conservation Act.

The Supreme Court has laid down three guideline penalties. A violator must pay the “net present value of the forest land” (currently b/w Rs 5.8 lakh & Rs 9.2 lakh per hectare), give an equivalent amount of land for compensatory afforestation and also pay for the cost of afforestation on that land.

The state forest department has advised the government to urge the apex court to allow it to levy only the cost of afforestation & waive the first two conditions, as most flat owners may not be able to fulfil them.

The forest department was asked to draft a formula to protect the interests of flat owners a few months ago when the row over construction on private forest land was discussed at a state cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. An official said, “The cabinet approved the proposal some time back but the details were not submitted in court”.

The government had, at that time, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying it was keen to help innocent flat owners despite the violation of the Forest Conservation Act. The officials said, “It was found that many of the flat owners were really innocent & even builders were not aware that they were breaking the law when the flats were sold more than one-and-a-half decades ago”.

Officials said that it will now be up to the apex court to decide whether or not to grant relief to innocent flat owners but we must also keep in mind that many builders deliberately kept flat owners in the dark even after official land records indicated that the land was private forest area. We can’t take responsibility in such cases.