Forest Land Character Sustains Under the Forest (Conservation) Act Notwithstanding Failed Afforestation or Prior De-notification for Cultivation

The Petitioner held two quarrying leases (QL 549 and QL 554) for ordinary building stone in Survey No. 23, Athiguppe Village, Mysore District, granted in 2012 and 2015 respectively.

Initial No Objection Certificates (NOCs) were issued by the Revenue and Forest Departments in 2011-2012, stating the land was not forest land.

In 2022, Revenue records were mutated to classify the land as "Compensatory Afforestation Forest Area" based on the Forest Department's claim that the land was part of the Kallabetta State Forest notified in 1900 and later used for compensatory afforestation in the 1980s.

Consequently, the Forest Department withdrew its NOCs.

Respondent No. 1 (Senior Geologist) issued stoppage orders interdicting quarrying operations.

After a previous remand by the High Court for breach of natural justice, Respondent No. 1 passed fresh impugned orders on 30.11.2024 and 05.12.2024, permanently stopping operations.

Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which prohibits the use of forest land for non-forest purposes without prior Central Government approval.

The term "forest" includes all statutorily recognized forests and any area recorded as forest in Government records, irrespective of ownership (T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India (1997)).

Rule 8(5) of the Karnataka Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1994 (KMMC Rules), regarding the prerequisite of an NOC for grant of leases.

Internal circulars of 1991 regarding the re-transfer of 'C' and 'D' class lands from the Forest to the Revenue Department.

The Court reasoned that although the KMMC Rules do not explicitly empower Respondent No. 1 to withdraw an NOC post-facto, a mining lease over forest land granted without Central Government approval is inherently illegal.

The Court rejected the Petitioner's argument of estoppel, holding that if the land was erroneously classified as revenue land at the time of the grant, the lease remains unauthorized.

Regarding the nature of the land, the Court found that even if the 1949 notification released land for cultivation, the land was later transferred back to the Forest Department in 1978 for a "land bank".

Crucially, the Court held that since compensatory afforestation activities were undertaken on the land in the 1980s—even if such efforts failed—the land retained its character as "forest" under the expansive definition in T.N. Godavarman.

The Enquiry Committee report of 2025 further confirmed that the land was utilized for forestry purposes, overriding the previous erroneous NOCs issued by officials who ignored Forest Department internal records.

No quarrying operations can be permitted without prior clearance from the Central Government as per Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

The Petitioner was found to have no right to continue mining despite the decade-long operation of the leases.

The Court dismissed the writ petitions and upheld the stoppage orders.