High court issues notices to Centre, Uttarakhand govt on denotification of Shivalik Elephant Reserve

The letter was treated as a PIL and taken up for hearing by the court.The Shivalik Elephant Reserve, spread over 5,400 square km covering parts of both Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand, was notified in 2002 through a government order.

The Uttarakhand High Court has issued notices to the Centre, the state government and the state wildlife board over a decision to denotify the Shivalik Elephant Reserve. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Alok Kumar Verma issued the notices on Monday and gave the respondents four weeks to reply.

Nearly 80 environmental activists had written to the acting chief justice of the high court, claiming that on November 24, 2020, the Uttarakhand state wildlife board decided to scrap the notification on the Shivalik Elephant Reserve for the expansion of Dehradun's Jolly Grant Airport. The letter was treated as a PIL and taken up for hearing by the court.

The Shivalik Elephant Reserve, spread over 5,400 square km covering parts of both Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand, was notified in 2002 through a government order. The state government has maintained that the denotification of the elephant reserve will pave the way for increased development activities in the area, including the expansion of the airport.

The move will facilitate land acquisition for development purposes in nearly a dozen forest divisions across the state, sources in the forest department said..