PATHANKOT, May 26: The Punjab government is a mute witness to a fierce tug-of-war between senior officers of the Punjab Forest Department, which threatens to paralyse its functioning.Incidentally, this comes at a time when the Minister-in-charge, Master Mohan Lal, has himself been accused of siding with certain contractors accused of wrongdoing (see inset).The tussle came to the fore when the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, K.S. Aulakh, recommended suspension and transfer of four senior officers on charges of violating a Supreme Court judgement. This concerns the felling of "khair" trees worth Rs 5 crore in the Dhar block, near here. These officers are H.S. Gujral, Conservator of Forest (Headquarters), M.P. Rai, Conservator of Forest, Bist circle, V. Mohindera, Conservator of Forests cum nodal officer, and R.K. Luna, Divisional Forest Officer, Pathankot.The secretary, forests, V.N. Ojha however, recommended that while Luna be suspended and chargesheeted, others be asked to explain their actions.The minister initially refused to accept the recommendations and back-referred the file noting various objections. Later, when the secretary insisted on action, Master Mohan Lal approved chargesheeting of all the four.Gujral alleges that Aulakh was acting with vengeance to stall his promotion as both of them were not on good terms.Rai too claimed that Aulakh's idea was to get his promotion stalled. Rai, in his explanation to the government, stated that it was he and some other junior officers who in 1997 had foiled the alleged attempt of Aulakh, the then MD, Punjab Forest Development Corporation, to fell trees from the reservoir of the Thein Dam. According to Rai, Aulakh wanted to pass a forest wealth of 2.5 lakh trees for a meagre number of 10,000 trees to which the department objected. Some trolleys laden with wood were also confiscated.The DFO, Pathankot, when contacted, said the people were trying to defame the minister. According to him, not a single tree was felled illegally, nor was their an embezzlement of a single penny in his division.On the other hand, Aulakh claimed that with his taking over as the PCCF early this year, the "caucus" was on the run after they were exposed. He is going ahead, despite this and recently he again recommended the suspension of Gujral, Rai and Luna in yet another case. According to a latest letter of the PCCF, 37,846 tress worth Rs 4 crore were felled from the "shamlat" forest land measuring 852 hectares in the Thein Dam reservoir area, which were a government property. The proceeds of the harvest were to be deposited with the state exchequer and 25 per cent of the amount was to be deducted as departmental charges. The rest of the money was, as per existing rules, required to be transmitted to the Shahpur Kandi Development Fund. But, in the present instance, the Dam authorities acquired the land and paid compensation for the standing trees to the panchayats and private parties while the Forest Department kept sleeping."It is yet another vicious attempt to fix us," say the three officers. According to them, since the land on which the trees were standing had been acquired a decade ago, the department had no right to charge anything from the proceeds on account of managing the "shamlat forest".Gujral alleged in writing: "Your (Aulakh's) extreme prejudice and bias against me is borne out by your letter.of 1998 wherein you had the extraordinary effrontery to level the most outrageous allegations of my complicity in the, as yet unproved, violations of the Forest Conservation Act in the Ranjit Sagar Dam submergence areas."
