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Law for the jungle

REACTING to the increasing deforestation under commercial pressures in the country, the Supreme Court has banned all commercial activities inside forests without prior approval from the Central government and established stiffer control over tree-felling and timber trade in forest areas. An interim order to this effect was passed by Justices J S Verma and B N Kirpal on December 12 in a civil writ petition.

The original writ petition filed in 1995, which pertained to a dispute over tree-felling rights in the forest land between an individual and the state, in Gudalur taluka of the Nilgiri region in Tamil Nadu, has been clubbed by the court with another filed by tree gro wers from Jammu and Kashmir. There will be a further in-depth hearing to examine all aspects relating to the National Forest Policy on February 25, 1997. It is hoped that the interim order will give the court more time to review the situation and issue appropriate directives.

The court has also directed each state government to constitute within one month an expert committee to identify areas which can be called

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