Concerned over incidents of forest fire in the state, the Uttarakhand High Court today asked the state government to file a report on the matter tomorrow.
Taking suo motu cognisance of media reports about the gravity of forest fires which have affected thousands of hectares of forest land in the state, the division bench of Chief Justice K M Joseph and Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma asked the state government to file a report on it by Thursday.
Advocate MC Pant mentioned forest fires and the destruction caused by them before the court in the course of the day's proceedings citing various newspaper articles published recently to make his point.
Recognising the seriousness of the situation, the court decided to treat the matter as a PIL and asked the state government to reply by tomorrow.
So far there have been 1,956 incidents of forest fire this season in the state which have destroyed 4,202 hectares of forest land.