ORDER

1. Heard Mr. Himanshu Pal, Advocate for respondents No.1 to 3 along with Mr. Himanshu Khurana, DM, Chamoli (through VC) Mr. Mukesh Verma, Advocate for respondent no.4 (through VC) Mr. Sanjay Upadhyay, Senior Advocate with Mr. Rohan Talwar, Mr. Anirudh Bhatia, Ms. Mansi Bachani and Ms. Gitanjali Sanyal, Advocates for respondents no.5 and 6.

2. This original application under Sections 14 and 15 of National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 (hereinafter referred to as ‘NGT Act, 2010’) has been filed by Ratneshwar Jan Kalyan Samiti, a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, stating that there is a lake namely Benital Lake in district Chamoli, State of Uttarakhand. It is catering needs of watersheds to many villages and, also called as “Benital-Palgad watershed”. The extent of Benital Lake has reduced in past sometime and standing trees on side of lake have been cut illegally, therefore, a Committee should be constituted to investigate the matter with the help of satellite image and to submit its report to protect Benital Lake from degradation and direction be issued to respondents to place a time bound action plan to restore Benital Lake to its natural and enriched st