Supreme Court modifies its order on eco-sensitive zones around national parks, sanctuaries

The Supreme Court on Wednesday modified its 2022 order to have mandatory eco-sensitive zones of a minimum of one kilometre around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, saying it would prevent the Union government from constructing roads and providing other facilities to those living in the areas, Live Law reported.

A three-judge bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol said that regulations about ESZs cannot be uniform across the country and the judgement prohibiting all development activities within such sites is impossible to implement.

“If the direction as issued by this court in paragraph 56.5 of the order dated 3rd June 2022 is continued, then no permanent structure would be permitted to come up for whatsoever purpose in the aforesaid ESZs,” the court added. “Hundreds of villages are situated within the ESZs in the country. If no permanent construction is to be permitted for any purpose, a villager who is desirous to reconstruct his house would not be permitted.”

A three-judge bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, BR Gavai and Aniruddha Bose had passed the earlier judgement, saying that the government has to act as a trustee for the benefit of the general public in relation to the natural resources so that sustainable development could be achieved in the long...

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