The Supreme Court has slammed the Uttarakhand government for deploying forest fire staff on election duty amid ongoing forest fires. The state has seen over 1,437 hectares of green cover affected since November.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday came down heavily on the Uttarakhand government regarding the forest fires in the state, questioning why forest department staff were deployed on poll duty, while the fire was raging. The top court directed the Chief Secretary to personally appear before them on May 17 to explain the government’s actions to contain the fire.
The bench of Justices BR Gavai, Sandeep Mehta, and SVN Bhati expressed dissatisfaction with the Uttarakhand government’s “lackadaisical approach” and sought an explanation from the Chief Secretary regarding the steps taken by the state government thus far. Additionally, they asked why forest department officials were assigned election duties while the fire was ongoing.
“Why have you employed the forest fire staff on election duty amidst fire?” the top court asked the counsel for the Uttarakhand government after the court was informed the same.
However, a state official submitted to the court that the election duty had concluded, and the Chief Secretary had instructed them not to assign any officials to poll duty.
The bench responded, “It’s a sorry state of affairs. You are only making excuses”.
The Supreme Court was hearing a plea on forest fires in Uttarakhand, where 910 such incidents have occurred since November 1 of last year, damaging forests in approximately 1145 hectares.
Advocate Parmeshwar told the court today that “There is a huge fire and 40 per cent of the forest is under fire. This is undoused.”
Responding to the advocate, the counsel for Uttarakhand said there were no new fires.