The Gujarat High Court May 6, 2025 referred to the Supreme Court order that said a person cannot ask for regularisation of construction that is against the rule of law. Unauthorised construction has to be demolished, it noted.
The High Court noted this while deciding on the unlawful encroachments near Chandola Lake in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Consequently, applying the same principle and lacking any documents supporting the petitioners' construction, the request to halt demolition until the petitioners' rehabilitation was deemed without merit and was dismissed by the High Court.
After reviewing the submissions and documents presented, the High Court observed that the petitioners' primary concern was to halt the demolition process until they receive alternative housing through the state's or corporation's rehabilitation programmer. Additionally, it was argued that the petitioners' constitutional rights to shelter and livelihood should not be jeopardised.
In response, the High Court recognised that the petitioners are from an economically weaker segment of society. Yet, their actions of constructing illegal and unauthorised buildings on either lake land or government land cannot be overlooked.
Moreover, regarding the petitioners' rights to livelihood and shelter, the court stated that the petitioners are permitted to submit their individual applications with necessary documents to the relevant authority. The petition was filed by 58 individuals living near Chandola Lake in Ahmedabad, where they have built huts along the lake's edge. Around 6,500 huts are present in the area surrounding Chandola Lake.
The petitioners stated that due to the ongoing demolition activities near Chandola Lake, their homes would be displaced. They requested that before their homes are demolished, they should receive alternative housing through a rehabilitation program developed by the Gujarat government. The government and municipal corporation have an obligation to offer alternative housing to the slum dwellers and hutment residents as their homes are set to be removed, they argued.
Field observations indicate a reduction in the habitat for feral horses and other wildlife in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park (DSNP), also known as the Dibru-Saikhowa Biosphere Reserve (DSBR). This is primarily due to annual floods affecting the area and its surroundings. The Chief Wildlife Warden of Assam reported this to the NGT on May 8, 2025.
The floods cause significant damage by submerging grasslands and forest vegetation, depositing sand, silt and debris, and altering flood plains and sandbars annually.
Erosion, a natural disaster, leads to a loss of area in DSNP, directly diminishing the habitat for wild animals and feral horses. According to the NGT report, feral horses are currently found in sandbars and grasslands within core areas like Lanka, Tapu, Laika Chapari of DSNP, and buffer areas such as Baghini Chapari, Surkhe Chapori, Shivguri, Paglam of DSNP.
The horses tend to stay in core areas during dry seasons for fresh grasslands and water, favoring open spaces with tall grasses for grazing. The buffer and core areas of DSNP are mainly marshy, swampy and filled with numerous water channels and wetlands that rejuvenate during annual floods. Over time, feral horses have adapted to the riverine environment, navigating flood plains, riverine sandbars, and water channels.
Based on field observations and information from forest staff and nearby communities, around 175-250 feral horses live in DSNP’s core and buffer areas. No poaching incidents have been reported so far.
However, since feral horses are not classified as scheduled species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, field officials face several challenges in their conservation and protection. Including feral horses in the schedule could aid their conservation and protection.
Moreover, there is a lack of literature on the conservation of feral horses, including their population and habitat preferences, unlike other wildlife species. Organisations like the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun could conduct studies that would be beneficial for the effective management of feral horses.
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) May 8, 2025 filed its report before the NGT on the declining forest cover in northeastern states.
The application was registered suo motu based on the news item titled Assam's forests shrink by 83.92 sq km in just two years report, published in the Assamtribune.com on December 22, 2024.
The forest cover in Assam declined by 83.92 square kilometres during 2021-2023, according to the India State of Forest Report 2023. The news article further mentioned that this decline is part of a broader trend observed across the northeastern states of India, which collectively lost 372.3 square kilometres of forest cover during the same period, with Mizoram experiencing the highest decrease of 178.42 square kilometres.
To determine the accurate situation of the issue, MoEFCC requested a factual status report from the Forest Survey of India (FSI), Dehradun, through a letter dated March 17, 2025. In response, on April 4, 2025, FSI asked the northeastern states to provide specific reasons for the reduction in forest cover in their regions to both MoEFCC and FSI. As of now, no information has been received from the state governments on this matter.
Land is a subject matter of the state government. The forest areas and legal boundaries are determined and maintained by the concerned state government.
The actions on the forest land falls within the purview of the concerned states (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Mizoram) and therefore,the principal chief conservators of forest from these states are the concerned authorities to take action in the matter, according to the report.