Former Civil Servants Write to CJI, Flag ‘Conflict of Interest’ in CEC Set up by MoEFCC

New Delhi: A group of former top civil servants have written an open letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) flagging the ‘conflict of interest” of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) set by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

The CEC is tasked with monitoring and ensuring compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court on matters of forests and wildlife and to provide technical advice on the subject to the apex court.

The open letter, signed by 60 civil servants, pointed out that there are no independent experts in the CEC, and those appointed had been “part of policy-making”.

 “In 2023, since Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) seemingly had complete autonomy in choosing the members of the CEC, it nominated in all the four posts of members, four former government officers, three of whom are retired Indian Forest Service officers and one, a retired scientist, who had also worked for many years until his retirement in the MoEFCC. There are no independent experts on the Committee.

Two of the members of the CEC have held the topmost forest and wildlife posts under the government of India, that of Director General and Special Secretary and have retired recently.

A CEC which is comprised of officers who had held the highest positions in the MoEFCC, and were closely involved in policy making, can hardly be expected to give independent advice to the Supreme Court, advice that is different from what they gave while they were in the government,” the letter says.

Read the full letter below:

Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India on the Conflict of Interest

of the Central Empowered Committee

30/06/2025

Honourable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India,

We are a group of former civil servants who have served in various capacities in the central and state governments. We owe no allegiance to any political party; our only loyalty is to the Constitution of India.

We have expressed our anguish several times in the past regarding the steady reduction of India’s forest cover, due to changes in certain laws and policies of the government, as well as their actions. What is causing us great concern now is a matter of 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.

A Central Empowered Committee (CEC) was constituted in the year 2002 by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) on the directions of the Honourable Supreme Court. It was set up for the purposes of monitoring and ensuring compliance with the orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court on matters of forests and wildlife and to provide technical advice on the subject to the Supreme Court.

It consisted of three former officers of the MOEF, and two non-government persons, the first an expert on forests and wildlife and the other an advocate of the Supreme Court who was also an environmentalist. In short, the Committee had not only expert members from the government, but also independent members who had not served in high positions in the government of India, nor had been involved in decisions of forest policy, thus ensuring impartiality and preventing conflict of interest.

In 2023, since Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) seemingly had complete autonomy in choosing the members of the CEC, it nominated in all the four posts of members, four former government officers, three of whom are retired Indian Forest Service officers and one, a retired scientist, who had also worked for many years until his retirement in the MoEFCC. There are no independent experts on the Committee.

Two of the members of the CEC have held the topmost forest and wildlife posts under the government of India, that of Director General and Special Secretary and have retired recently.

A CEC which is comprised of officers who had held the highest positions in the MoEFCC, and were closely involved in policy making, can hardly be expected to give independent advice to the Supreme Court, advice that is different from what they gave while they were in the government.

In 2023 a writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court by a group of individuals challenging the Forest Conservation Amendment Act (FCAA), 2023, as, according to them, the Act would hasten the decline of forests in India, already greatly reduced since a decade or two earlier. In hearings in this case, so far, the Supreme Court has given four landmark orders, upholding the definition of forests as per the Godavarman order of 1996 and directing that such forests be identified and geo-referenced as per the SC orders of 1996 and 2011 (Lafarge case). The case is pending for a final hearing and decision in the Supreme Court.

However, we fear that the outcome of this case, as well as those of others filed against the FCAA 2023, may possibly be compromised considering the conflict of interest of the CEC, and the likelihood that the Supreme Court may give weight to the advice of the CEC before taking a final decision in the matter.

We would like to point out that the Forest Conservation Amendment Bill 2023 was prepared and defended before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) by a CEC member then at the helm in the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change. The Forest Conservation Amendment Act (FCAA) 2023 which is being challenged in the Supreme Court, was also notified at that time, as were the rules under the Act and the consolidated guidelines (notified on 29/11/ 2023 and 29/12/2023).

Similarly, several memoranda that permitted using degraded, notified forests and unclassed/ revenue forests for compensatory  afforestation in exchange for diversion of forest land were issued during the tenure of some of the CEC members while they held top positions in the MoEFCC. Such orders are against the Godavarman judgement of 1996, but they were issued nevertheless. Any advice or report given by the current CEC, given its composition, cannot but be in line with the previous positions held by these officials in the government. The advice of the CEC in any case which challenges the FCAA 2023 (with which they were closely associated while in the government), will in all probability be biased in favour of the Act as passed, and will thus be a clear conflict of interest.

An indication of this is already evident in the recent SC order on ‘zudpi’ forests (scrub forests) of Maharashtra. The Supreme Court’s order of 22/05/2025 relied heavily on the CEC’s advice which recommended the untrammelled use of such forests for ‘compensatory afforestation’ considering ’zudpi’ forests as ecologically inferior forests as they cannot support thick stands of forest trees. Actually, ‘zudpi’ forests are scrub forests/grasslands rich in wildlife specifically adapted to such vegetation. ‘Zudpi’ forests support important, endemic and endangered species such as the Indian grey wolf, Great Indian bustard, Lesser florican, Blackbuck, Indian fox etc., besides serving as corridors for tigers, leopards, bears and other wildlife, and helping mitigate human-wildlife conflict in an area severely affected by the same. Diverting of ‘zudpi’ forests for non -forestry purposesis also violative of the Supreme Court’s Godavarman order of 1996 as well as the more recent orders of the Court dated 03/02/2025 and 04/03/2025 in the case against the FCAA 2023, which is still under litigation. It is gratifying to note that the Honourable Supreme Court did not accept the CEC recommendations in toto.

We would like to recommend to the Honourable Court that in order to give fair and unbiased advice, a CEC needs to be composed not just of experts who are retired officials of the government but of renowned experts from outside as well, of which there are many in the country. As the Maharashtra zudpi forest case judgement clearly reveals, a CEC which is composed of only retired government officials merely reiterates the position of the government in its advice to the Supreme Court, a clear conflict of interest. We request the CJI to ensure that such a CEC is not allowed to advise the Honourable Court in the FCAA 2023 cases before it, or be part of other such important cases in the interest of the country’s forests, wildlife and ecological security.

SATYAMEVA JAYATE

Constitutional Conduct Group (60 signatories, as below)

1. Anita Agnihotri IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Department of Social Justice Empowerment, GoI.

2. Mohinderpal Aulakh, IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police (Jails), Govt. of Punjab.

3. Gopalan Balagopal, IAS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal.

4. Madhu Bhaduri IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Portugal.

5. J.L. Bajaj IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Administrative Reforms and

Decentralisation Commission, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh.

6. Aurobindo Behera, IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Odisha.

7. Pradip Bhattacharya, IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Development & Planning and Administrative Training Institute, Govt. of West Bengal.

8. R. Chandramohan, IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Secretary, Transport and Urban Development, Govt. of NCT of Delhi.

9. Kalyani Chaudhuri, IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal.

10. Gurjit Singh Cheema, IAS (Retd.) Former Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Govt. of Punjab.

11. F.T.R. Colaso IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Karnataka & former Director General of Police, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir.

12. Anna Dani IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra.

13. Vibha Puri Das IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI.

14. P.R. Dasgupta IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Food Corporation of India, GoI.

15. Kiran Dhingra IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, GoI.

16. K.P. Fabian IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Italy.

17. S.K. Guha IAS (Retd.) Former Joint Secretary, Department of Women & Child Development, GoI.

18. Meena Gupta IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI.

19. Ravi Vira Gupta, IAS (Retd.) Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India.

20. Siraj Hussain IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Department of Agriculture, GoI.

21. Kamal Jaswal IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI.

22. Najeeb Jung IAS (Retd.) Former Lieutenant Governor, Delhi.

23. Dr. Ish Kumar IPS (Retd.) Former DGP (Vigilance & Enforcement), Govt. of Telangana and former Special Rapporteur, National Human Rights Commission.

24. Sudhir Kumar IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal.

25. Subodh Lal IPoS (Resigned), Former Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications, GoI

26. Sandip Madan IAS (Resigned), Former Secretary, Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission.

27. Dinesh Malhotra, IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh.

28. Harsh Mander IAS (Retd.) Govt. of Madhya Pradesh.

29. Sudhansu Mohanty, IDAS (Retd.). Former Financial Adviser (Defence Services), Ministry of Defence, GoI.

30. Anup Mukerji IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Bihar. 31. Deb Mukharji IFS (Retd.) Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh and former Ambassador to Nepal.

32. Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, IFS (Retd.), Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

33. Surendra Nath IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Finance Commission, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh.

34. P. Joy Oommen IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Chhattisgarh.

35. Amitabha Pande, IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI.

36. Mira Pande IAS (Retd.) Former State Election Commissioner, West Bengal.

37. Maxwell Pereira, IPS (Retd.) Former Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi.

38. Alok Perti IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Coal, GoI.

39. G.K. Pillai IAS (Retd.) Former Home Secretary, GoI.

40. Gurnihal Singh Pirzada, IAS (Resigned), Former MD, Punjab State Electronic Development & Production Corporation, Govt. of Punjab.

41. K. Sujatha Rao IAS (Retd.) Former Health Secretary, GoI.

42. Madhukumar Reddy A. IRTS (Retd.) Former Principal Executive Director, Railway Board, GoI.

43. Satwant Reddy IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Chemicals and Petrochemicals, GoI.

44. Vijaya Latha Reddy, IFS (Retd.) Former Deputy National Security Adviser, GoI.

45. Julio Ribeiro IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Punjab.

46. Manabendra N. Roy IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal.

47. A.K. Samanta IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police (Intelligence), Govt. of West Bengal.

48. G.V. Venugopala Sarma, IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Odisha.

49. N.C. Saxena IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI.

50. Ardhendu Sen IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal.

51. Ashok Kumar Sharma, IFoS (Retd.) Former MD, State Forest Development Corporation, Govt. of Gujarat

52. Ashok Kumar Sharma, IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Finland and Estonia.

53. Navrekha Sharma, IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Indonesia.

54. Raju Sharma IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh.

55. Avay Shukla IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary (Forests & Technical Education), Govt. of Himachal Pradesh.

56. A.K. Srivastava IAS (Retd.) Former Administrative Member, Madhya Pradesh Administrative Tribunal.

57. Prakriti Srivastava, IFoS (Retd.) Former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests & Special Officer, Rebuild Kerala Development Programme, Govt. of Kerala.

58. Parveen Talha IRS (Retd.) Former Member, Union Public Service Commission.

59. Anup Thakur IAS (Retd.) Former Member, National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

60. Rudi Warjri IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.