High Court orders demarcation of forest area at Morni Hills

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has admonished Haryana’s “lamentable illustration of classic administrative lethargy” in not concluding the forest settlement process in Morni Hills for nearly four decades, while directing the Forest Settlement Officer (FSO) to immediately take over all survey and demarcation work.

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Referring to the Indian Forest Act of 1927, the Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sumeet Goel held that “the entire exercise of survey and demarcation being done by revenue authorities is required to be handed over to the FSO already appointed”, while rejecting the state’s contention that these functions lay exclusively with revenue authorities.

The Bench was hearing a petition filed against the state of Haryana and other respondents by Vijay Bansal. Among other things, Bansal had contended that the residents of Morni block came within definition of traditional forest dwellers “from all angles and for all intents and purposes”. But efforts had not been made, either at the political or at administrative level, to secure justice –– social, economic and political –– to the people of the Morni block.

Court observation

Morni Hills are serving as the prime green cover acting as lungs for the tricity. Indubitably, the authorities are required to take a decision, one way or the other, regarding completion of the process which begins with a notification under Section 4(1) of the Indian Forest Act and culminates upon a notification issued under Section 20 of the Act. — HC Bench

The Bench noted that a notification under Section 4 of the 1927 Act had been issued on December 18, 1987, yet the state had taken no consequential action for nearly 38 years. “The procrastination exercised by the state government presents a lamentable illustration of classic administrative lethargy. To permit nearly four decades to elapse without any discernible, substantive action flowing from a statutory declaration is, to put it mildly, an affront to the principles of effective governance and a manifest failure at the end of officers concerned, both statutory and constitutional. Such inaction on the part of such officers, particularly in a matter of such profound public importance, merits the unequivocal condemnation of this court,” the Bench asserted.

The Bench also referred to the state’s obligations under Article 48A of the Constitution, which imposed a positive, peremptory duty to improve the environment and ensure vigilant protection of forests and wildlife. The State’s supine inaction in following this constitutional principle was not just a routine disregard of a directive principle, it was an outright affront to the broad scope of Article 21.

Judicial rulings had already held that Article 21 included the fundamental right to a healthy, clean environment, which covered the need to protect forests, plants and wildlife. This supine neglect, therefore, went beyond a procedural lapse — it directly violated a fundamental right.

Dealing with the state’s contention that demarcation was outside the FSO’s authority, the Bench asserted a bare perusal of the 1927 Act revealed that power was vested with the FSO to inter alia conduct survey, demarcation, making maps and act as a civil court.”

The Bench directed the FSO to “forthwith take requisite steps to ensure expeditious submission of his report”, and ordered the state to issue a notification of the scheduled land as a reserved forest by December 31 this year. All demarcation documents and survey data currently held by the Revenue and Forest authorities were directed to be handed to the FSO, who was to be provided all facilities to “enable him to discharge his duties”, including “inquiry, entry, survey, demarcation, preparing map, acquiring land and exercising powers of a civil court.”

The Bench added that the interim order restraining all non-forest activities in the Morni Hills area “shown in notification dated December 18, 1987”, would continue till the notification was issued. The court also directed the Forest Secretary, Haryana, to file a compliance affidavit by the second week of January 2026, warning that failure could invite “punitive consequences”.