The Supreme Court has stayed a decision of the Himachal Pradesh High Court permitting a family to cut hundreds of deodar and kail trees on their private forest land. A bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice H K Sema granted the stay in response to the Himachal government's appeal against the high court order.
The landlords -- Ashok Sood, his wife and daughter -- had claimed that since each held a discrete share of the land, the total area owned by each person was below the limit required to attract application of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. The state government countered in its petition that the land "is part of single holding and classified as forest in the revenue record."