LUCKNOW, Oct. 24 -- Petitioners in the Kukrail Night Safari and Lucknow Zoo shifting case will approach the National Green Tribunal (NGT) through senior Supreme Court lawyer Salman Khurshid, who is helping them pro bono, seeking directives to the Uttar Pradesh government to file a reply in the case. Taking the plea that the same case is also going on in the Supreme Court, the state government has avoided filing a reply with the NGT in the case. It will come up for next hearing before the principal bench of the NGT, New Delhi, on October 28. During the hearing of the case in the NGT on April 21 this year, the state government had apprised the tribunal about its decision to move the Supreme Court, seeking clearance for the project. Lucknow-based social activist Alok Singh had filed this case in the NGT challenging the state government's Kukrail Night Safari project. Singh has raised concerns over the night safari project at the Kukrail reserve forest, for which around 1500 trees are proposed to be felled. He also moved the SC on April 11 on the issue. In the applications filed in the SC and the NGT, Singh claimed that the night safari will affect the reserve forest and cause irreversible damage to its natural ecosystem, resulting in felling of thousands of dense trees, impacting climate change. "In the last hearing of the case in the NGT on August 21, the state government did not file the reply. The government took the plea that it has approached SC seeking clearance for the Kukrail Night Safari project," Alok Singh said. "We have approached the NGT seeking directives to the state government to file its reply. The government cannot shy away from its responsibility," Singh added. "Senior advocate of Supreme Court Salman Khurshid is helping the petitioners in this case pro bono," he said. "In the last hearing of this case in the Supreme Court this month (October), it could not come up for hearing. The court is yet to give the next date," Singh added. The ambitious Kukrail Night Safari and Lucknow Zoo project of the UP government is under Supreme Court scanner due to a 2023 petition filed by a group of ex-Indian Forest Service Officers. In this petition, the petitioners have challenged the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 alleging that it dilutes the definition of 'forest' as defined by the Supreme Court in its 1996 judgment in TN Godavarman v. Union of India case. After hearing the case, the Supreme Court on February 19, 2024, passed an interim order directing states and Union Territories that any proposal for the establishment of zoos and safaris referred to in the Wild Life Protection Act 1972 will not be finally approved except with prior approval of the court. The apex court further ruled that if the Union or any other government wants to roll out any such project, prior approval of the court is necessary. "This part of the interim direction will hold the field only till the final judgment of the co-ordinated bench," said the triple judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by the then CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud. Two other judges were Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra. It is this order of the Supreme Court delivered on February 19, 2024, that restrained central and state governments from establishing zoos and safaris in forest areas without the top court's nod. A detailed project report of the night safari, coming up on a 900-acre maple leaf design in the 2027.46-hectare Kukrail forest, was presented before chief minister Yogi Adityanath on November 19, 2024, roughly two years after its digital survey in December 2022....