The Supreme Court on 24.11.2025 admitted a statutory civil appeal filed by the Goa Foundation against the judgment of the National Green Tribunal dismissing its decade-old original application against the DLF housing project at Dabolim village. The appeal prays for the quashing of the judgment of the NGT dated 11.06.2025.
The Court posted the appeal for final consideration after 6 weeks. The Court restrained DLF from felling any trees on the plot in question. (Copy of the order is attached)
The Court tagged the appeal with consideration of the appeal filed by the Goa Foundation against an earlier judgment of the NGT dated 12.09.2023 which had rejected the challenge of the Goa Foundation to all the reports of the Review Committee. In that appeal, the Supreme Court has already restrained the Collectors from granting any conversion of any plot finally identified as forest by the Thomas and Araujo Expert Committees.
The Goa Foundation (together with local resident Edwin Mascarenhas) first filed its PIL against the DLF project coming up on the thickly forested Dabolim hill slope in the year 2010. On 12.01.2012, the High Court restrained DLF from felling any trees on the plot.
The PIL was transferred to the National Green Tribunal in 2013. After the matter went from NGT back to the High Court and again back to the NGT, the NGT heard the matter finally this year and passed a judgment concluding the plot was not forest land. The NGT based its judgment on the report of the Review Committee which had excluded the plot as “not forest” on the basis of satellite imagery and without benefit of a site visit for verification.
The appeal filed before the Supreme Court alleged that several expert forest committees had concluded the DLF (Sy.No.43/1-A) plot was forest, and that the NGT had not considered any of these reports. In fact, all these reports had concluded the area was forest after site visits and enumeration of the number and nature of trees. One of these expert committees included an expert committee set up by the Ministry of Environment & Forests, New Delhi.
Similar to the controversial Bhutani project coming up in the same area, the DLF project also involves erection of some 700 luxury flats. The project received environment clearance in 2009. This EC was held in abeyance by the Environment Ministry after the Goa Foundation filed its PIL in 2010. The suspension of the EC has never been revoked. In any case, the validity of the EC itself has now expired.
Sr Advocate Norma Alvares appeared for the Goa Foundation, assisted by Adv. Sristhi Agnihotri and Om D’Costa.
Claude Alvares