New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has refuted Haryana Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi’s claim that state forest officials were to blame for the construction of an illegal road in Nuh’s Basai Meo region that has become popular for transporting illegally mined material from Haryana to Rajasthan.
The unauthorised 1.5-kilometre road, which cuts through the forest area in the Aravalli hills, serves as an easy link between Haryana and Rajasthan. Its construction in 2023 has come under the court’s scrutiny, with a few villagers moving the court against it. In an application filed in November last year, the villagers alleged the road was built without the requisite approvals from the forest department.
They further alleged that it was constructed by the mining mafia, which had the support of some government officials and the local sarpanch. Private cultivable agricultural land was allegedly usurped for road development, depriving the farmers of their source of income, the villagers told the apex court.
In an affidavit filed on 15 May, Haryana’s chief secretary said the District Forest Officer (DFO) should have acted against the offenders who constructed the wide road through a forest area, which has remained closed for the last 55 years.
Responding to the chief secretary’s charges, the CEC, in a brief report to the court on 26 May, strongly rebutted the officer’s assertions and questioned his silence on the role of other district officers who did not take any action when the road was being constructed.
The CEC is a green watchdog committee that assists the top court in matters related to the environment, particularly in cases of development projects.
On Thursday, taking note of the CEC report, a bench led by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai upbraided the chief secretary for targeting forest officials. The court said the chief secretary should not forget his position or that he is not just the revenue department of the state.
The bench sought an action taken report from the chief secretary on what steps have been taken to hold the officials who failed to prevent the illegal road construction accountable. It noted that the entire incident indicated how the powerful mining mafia was not just in a position to protect their own persons, but even those officials whose complicity cannot be ruled out.
What the chief secretary said
The senior officer filed his affidavit in response to a Supreme Court order, which wanted him to explain why he and the district magistrate of Nuh skipped two meetings convened by the CEC in line with a 19 March court order.
Apologising for his absence, which the chief secretary attributed to a communication gap with his staff, the officer, in his affidavit, blamed forest officials for not preventing the construction of the illegal road.
“In this case, it is extremely difficult to accept that the DFO and all his subordinate staff remained totally silent throughout the time period during which the road was being constructed,” he submitted to the court.
Noting that the DFO sought the prosecution of the chief executive officer of the Nuh zila parishad and sarpanch of Basai Meo’s gram panchayat, as well as disciplinary action against officials in the revenue and panchayat departments, the chief secretary said the DFO should have been the first officer to initiate action against those who constructed the road.
“Having worked in several government departments, the deponent is aware that the forest department invariably comes down heavily on any violations in the forest area,” the affidavit said. He expressed surprise that the forest official who attended one of the two meetings convened by the CEC did not speak out about the dereliction of duty on the part of forest officials posted in Nuh.
He further highlighted that a complaint by forest officials to the station house officer of Nuh was made after the road construction was over and in use. The affidavit did not give further details of this complaint.
CEC’s report
In its 26 May report to the bench, the CEC said the chief secretary had also not spoken about the role of other officers who turned a blind eye to the illegally mined material that was being transported through the illegal route until the top court took action to make the road non-motorable.
“Going through the affidavit, it seems that he has passed the entire responsibility of the construction of the said illegal road to the local officers of the forest department on the pretext that they remained silent when the road was being constructed and became active only after it had been constructed. However, this does not seem to be factually correct as it can be seen from the list of actions taken by the officers of the Forest Department,” CEC said.
It referred to its earlier report of 15 May in which the CEC had listed the steps the forest department took to prevent the construction of the road.
Forest officials of Nuh district, the earlier report said, actively pursued the protection of the forest land and prevention of illegal activity in the area. The forest officials made several representations to the concerned authorities, including the deputy commissioner, to prevent encroachment and safeguard the lands.
It also said that it was the forest officials who filed “damage reports” against individuals, including the local sarpanch and government officials, who allegedly facilitated the road’s construction.
However, their efforts to get an FIR registered in the matter and also seek police aid to block the illegal route bore no results. The forest department’s persistence in booking those indulging in unauthorised activities showed its firm stand to protect notified forest land and uphold environmental safeguards, the CEC report further said.
Between July 2023 and March 2025, the forest officials wrote 23 times to different relevant authorities, drawing their attention to the unauthorised activity. There was no response to either of their letters until recently, when the top court intervened in the matter.
“Repeated objections were raised by them (forest officials) against the alteration of Khasra numbers pertaining to the forest areas, particularly in the Aravalli region, and several communications were made to concerned authorities, including the SDM, Tehsildar, Deputy Commissioner, and other higher officials, to prevent encroachment and safeguard these lands,” the CEC report said.
When reports of illegal mining activities surfaced, the forest department escalated the matter and filed damage reports against individuals, including the village sarpanch.
“The forest department, understandably, also pursued registration of FIRs against the culprits and insisted on the maintenance of law and order to prevent recurrence of such activities, but to no avail,” the CEC said in its report.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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