Jharkhand High Court Slams CID Over Delay in Covid Lockdown Tree Felling Probe

Ranchi (IANS): The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday pulled up the state government over the glacial pace of its investigation into the large-scale illegal felling of trees across multiple districts during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.

A division bench of Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad and Justice Sanjay Prasad demanded to know why the Crime Investigation Department (CID) has failed to wrap up the investigation even after four years, and demanded an immediate status update on the case.

Court Suspects a “Larger Conspiracy”

The bench raised sharp concerns that the CID has conveniently bottlenecked its inquiry. While the original petition alleges widespread deforestation across several districts, the current CID probe appears restricted only to the Panki area of Palamu district.

Consequently, the High Court ordered the state government to file a comprehensive response addressing this disparity and to explicitly investigate the angle of a “larger conspiracy.”

“The probe was handed over to the CID after the matter surfaced, but it has since progressed at a very slow pace,” Abhay Kumar Mishra, counsel for the petitioner, informed the court. He further alleged that influential individuals are actively attempting to shield the masterminds involved.

Inside the 2020 Lockdown Timber Scam

According to the petition, smugglers weaponized the silence of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns to illegally chop down hundreds of valuable trees. The environmental plunder spanned multiple districts:

• Affected Regions: Jamtara, Palamu, West Singhbhum (Chaibasa), and Ranchi.
• The Logistics: Smugglers allegedly used more than 200 trucks to brazenly transport the illegally felled timber out of the state.

While multiple police stations initially registered localized FIRs, the state later consolidated the investigation under the CID.

Forest Officials Implicated

During previous hearings, the state government admitted to the court that the ongoing probe has unmasked the direct involvement of Forest Department officials and staff.

To date, investigators have filed chargesheets against two forest officials and secured an arrest warrant against another key accused. However, the High Court firmly rejected the state’s excuses for the overall delay, ruling that keeping a critical environmental probe pending for four years cannot be justified by mere paperwork delays.

The division bench has scheduled the next hearing in two weeks.