Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Monday, May 18, stayed the felling of trees in the eco-sensitive zone surrounding Kasu Brahmananda Reddy (KBR) National Park in Hyderabad, ordering that no trees be cut within the 25 to 35 metres buffer around the protected urban forest, amid mounting protests from concerned citizens who had been opposing the shrinking of the green cover.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan passed the interim direction while issuing notice on a special leave petition challenging the Telangana government’s decision to sharply reduce the width of the eco-sensitive zone to accommodate road infrastructure projects.
The petition, filed by Kaajal Maheshwari, challenged the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s final notification of October 27, 2020, which fixed the eco-sensitive zone around KBR National Park at a width varying between just three metres and 29.8 metres – a steep reduction from the originally proposed buffer of 25 to 35 metres.
The petitioner contended that the buffer was progressively diluted between 2012 and 2015 at the instance of the state government to facilitate road and infrastructure development, particularly under the Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP).
KBR National Park, notified under Section 35 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, is among Hyderabad’s last significant urban forests. The petition described the park as one of the city’s principal green lungs and argued that a buffer of less than 30 metres in several stretches effectively strips it of any meaningful ecological protection.
According to the petition, the drastic narrowing of the eco-sensitive zone was not backed by any scientific ecological assessment. Instead, it was driven by infrastructure considerations, including the need to avoid land acquisition costs along road alignment corridors.
The plea challenged the reduction as arbitrary and contrary to the fundamental purpose of eco-sensitive zones, which are meant to serve as ecological shock absorbers — transitional areas that protect national parks and wildlife habitats from the pressures of urban development and construction activity on their peripheries.
The Supreme Court petition was filed after the Telangana High Court declined to grant interim relief in a pending public interest litigation on March 31, instead adjourning the matter to May 5 and directing the petitioners to undertake independent research on what activities are permissible within the eco-sensitive zone.
The petitioner argued before the Supreme Court that unregulated construction was continuing in and around the park and that the High Court’s refusal to intervene risked causing irreversible ecological damage in the interim.
The petition also raised procedural objections to how the 2020 notification was finalised. It alleged that despite more than 19,000 people signing a petition opposing the dilution of protections and formal public objections being received, these were not meaningfully considered before the notification was issued.
The plea further alleged that the state government falsely represented to the central government that a public hearing had been conducted before the finalisation of the eco-sensitive zone boundaries.
The Supreme Court has issued notice to the respondents. The matter is now pending further hearing.
This post was last modified on May 18, 2026 3:05 pm