A UN award-winning Tamil Nadu bureaucrat, Supriya Sahu (IAS:1991:TN), has been asked by the Madras High Court to appear before it on February 27 and explain the delay in releasing funds for maintenance of forest areas cleared of invasive species. Sahu, who won the “Champions of the Earth” award in 2025 from the United Nations for forest conservation, is currently posted as Additional Chief Secretary of the Environment, Climate Change, and Forests department of the Tamil Nadu government.
The bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy issued the direction recently. The cases relate to the removal of prosopis juliflora and other invasive species from forests. The direction was issued after the court was informed that Rs 81.78 crore was yet to be released for maintenance of forest areas where such species were rooted out.
The HC bench ruled that the maintenance work should be done periodically so that complete removal of the invasive species can be achieved.
The bench observed that if the maintenance is not done properly, the invasive species will come up again and defeat the purpose of the project that aims to remove them completely.
The court also noted in its order that unless the amount is released by the government forthwith, the very object of the exercise will get derailed. Hence, the court summoned the Additional Chief Secretary of the forest department to be present in the court on the next hearing scheduled for Feb 27.
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