In its criticism of the Uttarakhand administration over the state’s forest fires, the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the rationale behind the deployment of forest department employees for poll duty while the fire was out of control. On May 17, the Chief Secretary was ordered by the Supreme Court to personally come before them and provide an explanation of the government’s efforts to contain the fire.
Judges BR Gavai, Sandeep Mehta, and SVN Bhati’s bench expressed disappointment with the Uttarakhand government’s “lackadaisical approach” and asked the Chief Secretary to provide an explanation for the actions the state government has taken so far. They also questioned why election tasks were allocated to forest department staff when the fire was still ongoing.

The top court inquired of the Uttarakhand government’s attorney, “Why have you employed the forest fire staff on election duty amidst fire?” after receiving this information.

Nonetheless, a state representative informed the court that the election duty had ended and that the Chief Secretary had given them the order to refrain from designating any officials for poll duty.
The bench answered, “It’s a pity, the situation. You’re just coming up with excuses.”

The Supreme Court was considering a case over forest fires in Uttarakhand, which had damaged almost 1145 hectares of forests in 910 instances since November 1 of last year.

Today, attorney Parmeshwar informed the court, “Approximately 40% of the forest is currently engulfed in flames due to a massive fire.”
” This has been discarded.” In response to the attorney, the Uttarakhand lawyer stated that no new fires had occurred.

The top court is seeking a response from the state government regarding the unfulfilled allocation of Rs 9 crores by the Centre last year for forest fire management.

A six-member committee from the Centre and state is working to control fires in Uttarakhand, with over 9,000 people working and 420 cases lodged. However, funding is a significant issue, and the Centre must contribute.
With “280 fires in Uttarakhand alone,” the bench questioned the counsel if they had taken any action to “procure the equipment.” The counsel responded, “We had filled 1,205 posts last year, and the rest are under process.”
The counsel stated that they are on a recruitment spree due to the ongoing forest fires in Uttarakhand, which have affected over 1,437 hectares of green cover since November.