Public Interest litigation (PIL) - Bonafide litigants - Locus standi - PIL filed by an applicant set up by others - Maintainability of - Held: Courts should not allow its process to be abused by a mere busybody or a meddlesome interloper or wayfarer or officious intervener without any interest or concern except for personal gain or private profit or other oblique consideration - The filing of an entirely misconceived and mala fide application in the garb of public interest litigation by the applicant is strongly deprecated - In order to curb such PILs, exemplary cost imposed - Constitution of India, 1950, Art. 32.

Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980: Section 2(i).

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) - Forest conservation - Ecological imbalance - Protection of-Certain land leased by State to a private company for establishment of a coal washery plant - An applicant filed PIL alleging adverse effect on environment of the area as a result of the grant of lease of forest land for non-forest activities in violation of law - The applicant claimed that undue favour and patronage had been extended to the private company for establishment of a coal washery plant in respect of land which was a forest land by wrongly showing in various revenue records that the land was a part of a certain village whereas actually the land formed a part of another village - To examine the question whether the land was a part of forest or not, this Court referred the application to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) for its report - CEC, in its second report, concluded that the land allotted was not a forest land-The third report, which was based on the satellite imageries, supported the conclusions reached by the CEC in its second report - According to the applicant the CEC should have opted for the latest technology and should not have accepted the report of National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) - The applicant had relied upon photo printing analysis done by him with the help of Computer Aided Designing (CAD) - Validity of - Held: There is no merit in the argument that CEC should have opted for the latest technology-The later technology gives more spatial information but that does not mean that the information given by the earlier technology is inaccurate - NRSA 's report is reliable and there is no reason to reject it - Hence, land allotted to the private company is not forest land.

Words & Phrases:

"Forest land" - Meaning of - In the context of S. 2(i) of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

Public interest litigation was filed alleging adverse effect on environment of the area as a result of the grant of lease of forest-land for non-forest activities in violation of law. The applicant claimed that undue favour and patronage had been extended to a private company for establishment of a coal washery plant in respect of land which was a forest land by wrongly showing in various revenue records that the land was a part of a certain village whereas actually the land formed a part of another village. To examine the question whether the land was a part of forest or not, this Court referred the application to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) for its report. The CEC, in its second report, concluded that the land allotted to the said private company was not a forest land. The third report, which was based on the satellite imageries, supported the conclusions reached by the CEC in its second report. According to the applicant the CEC should have opted for the latest technology and should not have accepted the report of National Remote Sensing Agency. The applicant had relied upon photo printing analysis done by him with the help of Computer Aided Designing (CAD).