District Magistrate, forest officials at loggerheads over booking of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve rest houses

  • | Thursday | 15th November, 2018

The rest houses could be made available to district administration only if they were found to be vacant, he added. PILIBHIT: District magistrate Akhilesh Kumar Mishra’s circular stating that forest officials must take the consent of city magistrate Archna Dwivedi before making the bookings of forest rest houses in Pilibhit tiger reserve (PTR) has not gone down well with the forest department. “This nowhere gives any right to the DM to transgress the lawful rights of forest department,” he added.Kumar said PTR has seven forest rest houses in all five forest range circles. Reacting strongly against the order, PTR’s deputy director Adarsh Kumar has termed the order as breach of forest officials’ rights.Mishra had directed the forest officials, in a meeting held here on Tuesday, to contact the city magistrate first before booking the forest rest houses. In addition to this, the tourist spot at Chuka situated in the core forest area of Mahof forest range has four four Tharu huts, one tree hut and a water hut for tourists to stay.“I have advised the DM through my letter to make city magistrate remain in contact with the sub divisional forest officers if the forest rest houses are needed by her for VIPs,” he said.

PILIBHIT: District magistrate Akhilesh Kumar Mishra’s circular stating that forest officials must take the consent of city magistrate Archna Dwivedi before making the bookings of forest rest houses in Pilibhit tiger reserve (PTR) has not gone down well with the forest department. Reacting strongly against the order, PTR’s deputy director Adarsh Kumar has termed the order as breach of forest officials’ rights.Mishra had directed the forest officials, in a meeting held here on Tuesday, to contact the city magistrate first before booking the forest rest houses. However, citing a Supreme Court order dated July 5, 2018, Adarsh Kumar has said that the rights regarding this matter have been vested in forest department by the virtue of apex court’s guidelines.In a letter to the DM on Wednesday, Kumar clarified that the forest department had exclusive right to take decisions regarding booking of the forest guest houses for its officials, VIPs as well as keeping the accommodation reserved for other departmental officials in accordance with departmental needs.Providing a copy of the concerned order to TOI, Kumar explained that a division bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta had empowered the forest department to keep the entire control of forest rest houses, including their reservations, in its hands while observing that these rest houses had limited number of rooms where the forest officials were required to camp primarily to discharge their duties in connection with conservation, protection and the management of forests and wildlife.However, under special circumstances, the Supreme Court had granted district administration the right to avail the facility of priority reservations in forest rest houses only for limited periods and for specific purposes, Kumar said. “This nowhere gives any right to the DM to transgress the lawful rights of forest department,” he added.Kumar said PTR has seven forest rest houses in all five forest range circles. In addition to this, the tourist spot at Chuka situated in the core forest area of Mahof forest range has four four Tharu huts, one tree hut and a water hut for tourists to stay.“I have advised the DM through my letter to make city magistrate remain in contact with the sub divisional forest officers if the forest rest houses are needed by her for VIPs,” he said. The rest houses could be made available to district administration only if they were found to be vacant, he added.

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