Hearing on a public interest litigation against heavy construction at Kunau village in Rajaji national park, the Uttarakhand high court has directed the state government to provide information about observance of the court orders in the case within three weeks. The bench of acting chief justice Ravi Vijaykumar Malimath and justice NS Dhanik has set September 28 as the next date of hearing on the case.
During hearing on the petition on Monday, the petitioner informed the court that the orders of the court had not been implemented so far. Only one of the boundary walls of the encroachment has been removed by the authorities so far. Responding to this, the counsel representing the Government stated that permission had now been received to remove the encroachment. Considering this, the court directed the State Government to inform it about the permission received along with an affidavit. It will be recalled that Haridwar resident advocate Vivek Shukla had filed the PIL stating that Chidanand Saraswati was encroaching on forest land at Kunao in the Rajaji national park about 14 kilometres from Haridwar. He had alleged that such illegal construction had been going on since 2006 near the forest chowki. However, the forest department had not taken any action against the encroachment.The petitioner has sought action against those responsible.