Green Tribunal had directed Forest Department to maintain status quo The Haryana Forest Department seems to have finally admitted what an inquiry conducted by an IAS officer in Sirsa had indicated and what an NGO that moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against the department’s move of felling trees through auction to private agencies has been contending. The state government has finally submitted before the NGT that no further felling or logging of trees would be done through private agencies. The NGT is hearing a plea filed by an NGO, Haryali Welfare Society, against the auction of trees in the Kalanwali range of Sirsa by the Forest Department. During the last hearing of the case on January 29, the NGT had directed the state government and the Haryana Forest Development Corporation to maintain a status quo on felling of trees in the state. However, after the department’s submission before the NGT on April 24 that “in no part of the state felling and logging of trees would be done through private agencies and it would be done through government departments/ government agencies,” the Tribunal has modified its earlier status quo to an extent that it would now be applicable in Sirsa alone. On April 21, when The Tribune had carried a story “Probe report holds auction of trees in Sirsa division unlawful”, the department had justified felling through private agencies claiming that it fetched higher revenues to the government. The report of an inquiry in to the allegations of irregularities and misappropriation of funds in the auction of trees by the Sirsa Forest Division in the Kalanwali range of the Haryana Forest Department had pointed towards the possibility of massive cover-up of illegal felling of green trees. The report of the inquiry conducted by the then Ellenabad SDM Vijay Kumar Siddappa Bhav, an IAS officer, had held the auction unlawful and violation of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, National Working Plan Code, guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), National Forest Policy, 1988, State Forest Policy, 2006, as well as orders of the Supreme Court issued on writ petition CWP 171 of 1996. Three contractors and the NGO had moved the Tribunal with the plea that trees did not exist at site as explained to them at the time of auction. However, Vinod Kumar Jhanjharia, Conservator of Forests, Hisar Territorial Division, had justified the auction and said it fetched better revenues than the departmental felling. In its counter-affidavit filed before the NBT, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has submitted that “despite having an approved working plan and orders of the Supreme Court, the Haryana Forest Department preferred to go for an open auction of dead and dry trees”. The case * The report of an inquiry in to the allegations of irregularities and misappropriation of funds in the auction of trees by the Sirsa Forest Division in the Kalanwali range of the Haryana Forest Department had pointed towards the possibility of massive cover-up of illegal felling of green trees.