NAINITAL: Amending its earlier directive banning overnight stay for all trekkers in meadows across the state, Uttarakhand high court (HC) on Friday relaxed its restriction a bit by allowing Army personnel permission to camp overnight in meadows. The division bench of acting Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Lok Pal Singh stipulated in the single-page order that Army personnel can “stay overnight at bugyals (meadows) in temporary accommodation by maintaining absolute hygiene and cleanliness during their regular exercises/expeditions.”The court had last month banned overnight stay in alpine meadows citing it to be a threat to the fragile ecosystem of the area and ordered removal of fibre huts constructed in various meadows to be removed within three months. Terming high-altitude alpine meadows as ‘God’s own abode’, the HC had directed the state government to “consider declaring all important high- altitude valleys and alpine meadows with rich plant population as high- altitude national parks and sanctuaries within a period of six months” The court’s direction had given a big jolt to the camping and mountaineering industry in the state whose representatives said that many groups that had earlier planning trekking tours in the Uttarakhand Himalayas had cancelled their bookings after overnight camping in meadows was banned.Siddhartha Sah, the counsel representing a Dehradun-based NGO which had filed a petition in the case, told TOI, “The honourable court took cognizance of a news item this week which said that the state forest department did not allow an expedition of the Army to trek, citing the ban order. The court, in view of the news item, ordered the modification so that Army expeditions are not affected adversely.”Commenting on the modification of the order, Sumit Sah, a nature lover who regularly visits bugyals, said, “The order has been modified in the right spirit. The ban was good as the grasslands had become sites for rampant construction and littering. Army personnel are not like normal tourists and I hope the Army will continue to maintain the sanctity of 'God's abode'.”

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