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New Delhi: A group of 60 retired civil servants have written to Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai, raising concerns about the impartiality of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) which now comes under the aegis of the union environment ministry. 

The CEC was first created in 2002 under the insistence of the Supreme Court, to keep track of the judgments of the apex court pertaining to forests, wildlife and conservation and look into cases of non-compliance by various parties in these matters. The CEC also contained two independent members, apart from retired government officials.

However, the new CEC – reconstituted in December 2023 – comprises only retired officials who have held high posts in the union environment ministry. 

The retired bureaucrats’ letter to the CJI, dated June 30, notes their “great  concern” about the “conflict of interest, and transgression of the principles of natural justice, which promises to take the diminution of India’s forests even further down the road”.

Signatories to the letter include Prakriti Srivastava, a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Kerala, Meena Gupta, former Secretary to the union environment ministry, Anup Mukerji (former Chief Secretary of Bihar), N.C. Saxena (former Secretary to the Planning Commission) and Julio Ribeiro (former Director General of Police, Punjab).

The Supreme Court constituted the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) in 2002. Its role was to keep track of the judgments of the apex court pertaining to forests, wildlife and conservation, and look into cases of non-compliance by various parties in these matters. Currently, the CEC has five members: a chairperson, three members and a member secretary.

The current Chairperson of the CEC is Siddhanta Das. Das, who retired as the Director General of Forests and the Special Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, is a former Indian Forest Service officer of the 1982 batch of the Odisha cadre. 

The other members of the CEC are C.P. Goyal, Sunil Limaye and J.R. Bhatt. 

Goyal is also a retired IFS officer and former Director General of Forests and Special Secretary of the union environment ministry, and a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in the Uttar Pradesh........

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