Bombay High Court deprecates forest officials for threatening man who questioned department inaction

The Bombay High Court pulled up the Deputy Conservator of Forests of Sangli district, Maharashtra, for intimidating the petitioner with legal action for filing a complaint against the Department of Forests' failure to comply with a Lokayukta order [Kisan Vitthal Kadam and Anr vs The State of Maharashtra and Anr.]..The petitioners had approached the Lokayukta in 2017 as they had not been allotted alternate land. Concluding that the forest department had taken appropriate measures to allot land within the proposed time, the Lokayukta closed the complaint.After waiting for three years, the petitioners sent a legal notice to the State authorities. In response, the Forest Department asserted there was compliance with the order of the Lokayukta. The response also contained a warning to the petitioners for raising grievance against their department. The petitioners assailed the order of the Lokayukta in the plea filed through Advocate Ajinkya Udane.This did not bode well with the Bench of Justices PB Varale and SD Kulkarni which made stern observations against the State department officials."We see no justifiable reason for such action to a citizen by a Department of the State Government. The Department of the State Government could have informed the citizen or the Petitioners as to his demands are satisfied but then a warning to a citizen of some action for raising grievance is not at all expected from the Department of the State Government," the Court stated.The Court also did not hold back from commenting on the tone of the communication.“We are surprised to see the tenor of the communication. The communication is of the year 2021 and the Department of Forests, Deputy Conservator of Forests was bold enough to firstly submit that there was no delay and secondly, if there was some delay, the delay is not resulting either in monetary loss or any mental or physical stress to the petitioners,” the Court said. .The Additional Government Pleader RS Pawar requested the Court to grant time to the department to file a response to the petition. Accordingly, two weeks was granted. The Court also cautioned that if there no concrete positive action is taken, the Secretary of the Forest Department and the Revenue Department would be summoned to submit their personal explanation to the court..The petitioners were represented by advocates Ranjit Shinde and Ketan Shinde.[Read Order]