The court reaffirmed the necessity of protecting tiger habitats against unlawful human encroachment, emphasizing compliance with environmental laws and the importance of prior clearances for any developmental projects in such areas.

JUDGMENT

1. Issue raised in this application is protection of Tiger habitat and breeding ground and to avoid the human-tiger conflict and to protect the forest land from encroachments.

2. The submission of the applicant is that the Chandanpura Forest Region, situated between Kerwa and Kaliyasote Dam acts as safety Valve in maintaining this delicate Ecological balance, is also a Tiger Habitat and breeding ground due to which this forest has been notified as protected forest and the entire Ecology is thus safeguarded or regulated by Forest Protection Act, Environmental Protection Act , Biodiversity Act , Wildlife Protection Act and the State being signatory of various international conventions, is bound to preserve, protect and conserve this forest region, alongwith its peripherial areas which are part of and forms the buffer zone for Chandanpura Forest Region.

3. It is further submitted that, due to continuous interference, disturbance, encroachment and destruction of Forest by Humans, the inhabitant Tiger are facing the danger of being forcefully removed from this Forest Region, and the Western Ringroad Project is the last blow to cut of and fragment the Tiger corridor, so that the movement of Tigers cease to exist and the breeding ground of Tiger be made inaccessible to the Tigers and that Respondent No. 9, is operating a full-fledged university in the midst of Tiger Habitat and Breeding ground, without taking any Forest Clearance, under the guise of Student Enrichment Hub where only extracurricular activities are permitted but does not include academic activities.

4. That, numerous events of forest fire have occurred frequently on behest of JLU and are reported along the periphery of JLU campus, tree cover has been reduced for newer construction as evident by the comparison of images in following Para and that under the guise of educational institute, slash and burn method has been adopted by JLU for encroaching the forest land all along its periphery, which is evident from the newspaper publication dated 24.06.2024, where action has been taken by authorities to remove the illegal boundary measuring more than 200 meters on the forest land, where JLU has slowly adopted slash and burn method to remove forest cover. These disgraceful and illegal actions of JLU establishes beyond doubt that the only purpose of the respondent JLU is to grab land under the guise of educational Institute.

5. The death of a healthy tigress and her cub Kms away from JLU, just 4 days after its sighting must be seriously looked into and enquired of any foul play. this hill is covered from all side by thick forested belt having a highly dense canopy but the top of this hill, Khasra No 89/2 with Z7 & Z5, has been systematically cleared of tree cover and now plotting has been done to further increase the non-forest activities along with human induced disturbances and various pollutions, with roads being made by cutting side of the hill, most importantly within few meters from Tiger saucers where Tiger and Wildlife frequently comes to quench their thirst and cool down their body.

6. Plotting has been done without the permission from the competent authority, and entire Danish hill with its slope is facing Kaliyasot River. In contraven