The state has informed the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the Haryana Preservation of Tree Act, 2026, is being formulated and will be notified after approval by the competent authority. The submission came as the court disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) over preserving “large and thick green cover” in Gurugram’s Sector 53 after the state assured preservation of the site.
The statement on the Act’s formulation came before Justices Sheel Nagu and Yashvir Singh Rathor during the hearing of the PIL filed by Varun Sheokand against the state and other respondents.
The Bench noted that it had, through an interim order in 2024, restrained construction on a site earmarked for group housing in Sector 53 as the project was “adversely affecting large and thick green cover at the same place”.
It said the Estate Officer-II of the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), Gurugram, had produced an email stating that the interim order would be complied with and the site shall be preserved.
The Bench said: “…the first and substantial prayer made in this petition for restraining the respondents from raising any construction in the thick green cover in Gurugram stands satisfied.”
However, it clarified that issues relating to broader environmental concerns and other consequential reliefs could still be agitated in an already pending PIL dealing with protection of green cover in Haryana and Punjab.
“For the purpose of other ancillary prayers, which are consequential in nature, this Court extends liberty to the petitioner to intervene in PIL `Sunil Kumar Sharma and others versus Union of India and others’, where a similar issue of protection of green cover in the States of Haryana and Punjab is under adjudication,” it said while disposing of the petition.
The court in the related matter, referred to by the Bench, had just over a month back admonished Haryana for lack of seriousness towards environmental degradation.
The censure came as the court observed that the state’s forest cover was 3.65%. The court, on April 1, prohibited the felling of “any tree of any age/specie”, including about 5,000 trees proposed to be cut for the construction of the Zirakpur–Panchkula bypass, without permission of the court.
