JUDGMENT :

B.R. GAVAI, J.

1. For the reasons stated in the applications for impleadment/intervention, the same are allowed.

2. This bunch of appeals challenges the order dated 18th February 2020, passed by the learned National Green Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as “the learned NGT”) in Original Application Nos. 313, 335 and 396 of 2019, thereby quashing and setting aside the notice dated 1st March 2019 issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh for establishing new wood based industries (hereinafter referred to as “WBIs”) and also setting aside all the provisional licenses given in pursuance thereof.

3. The appeals also challenge the orders dated 18th March 2020, 2nd December 2020, and 21st December 2020 vide which the review applications filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh and the provisional license holders have been rejected.

4. Civil Appeal Nos. 2407-2412 of 2021 are filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh. The rest of the Civil Appeals are filed by the provisional license holders, who were granted licenses in pursuance of the notice dated 1st March 2019, issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

5. For the sake of convenience, we will refer to the facts as found in Civil Appeal Nos. 2407-2412 of 2021 filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh.

6. There are series of orders passed by this Court and the Central Empowered Committee (hereinafter referred to as “CEC”) appointed by this Court, issuing various directions for prohibiting/regulating the felling of trees as well as the establishment of WBIs. We will refer to them extensively in the subsequent paragraphs.

7. In pursuance of the order passed by this Court dated 5th October 2015 in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 202 of 1995 (T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad vs. Union of India), the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (“MOEFCC” for short) issued Wood Based Industries (Establishment and Regulation) Guidelines 2016 (hereinafter referred to as “2016 Guidelines”) vide Notification No. S.O. 3456 (E) dated 11th November 2016.

8. Subsequent to the 2016 Guidelines, timber assessment for Trees Outside Forest (“TOF” for short) in the State of Uttar Pradesh for WBIs was done for the period between February 2017 and December 2017 by the Forest Survey of India (“FSI” for short). The FSI thereafter submitted its report, which contains district wise, species wise and diameter class wise number of stems (trees), volume and annual potential production of timber from TOF in rural areas of all the districts of the State.

9. In pursuance of the 2016 Guidelines, the matter was placed before the State Level Committee (“SLC” for short) for grant of licenses to various WBIs. The SLC in its meeting held on 4th May 2018, considered the matter about the grant of licenses to various WBIs after taking into consideration the availability of wood in the State of Uttar Pradesh for determining the amount of timber available for new WBIs. In the said meeting, it was also decided that, in order to determine the correct number of new licenses to be issued to WBIs under different categories against the timber available in the State, a reassessment may be done by the Indian Plywood Industries Research and Training Institute (“IPIRTI” for short).

10. In the meeting of the SLC, held on 7th September 2018, since it was found that the capacity of plywood units is taken as fixed by the 2016 Guidelines, which, in turn, was based on the assessment of IPIRTI, a decision was taken that there was no need for the fresh assessment of