Overview

• Sixty former civil servants wrote to Chief Justice B.R. Gavai on June 30, highlighting conflicts in the four-member panel advising on Forest Conservation Amendment Act cases
• Since 2023 the CEC has comprised three retired Indian Forest Service officers and a former environment ministry scientist with no independent experts
• Signatories point out that one committee member had drafted and defended the FCAA bill before a parliamentary committee, raising questions about impartiality
• They cite a May 22 Supreme Court order on Maharashtra’s zudpi forests, which leaned on CEC advice favoring compensatory afforestation, as evidence of potential bias
• The letter urges the court to bar the current CEC from advising on FCAA cases and to include external specialists to ensure unbiased environmental adjudication