When in July 2002, J-K High Court adopted the Dal Lake in response to a Public Interest Litigation by law student Sheikh Tahir Iqbal, the lake was in the throes of an all-out encroachment and plantation onslaught. Three years on, a pro-active pursuit of the case by HC has turned Dal restoration into J-K’s most popular issue outside its treacherous politics and spawned a dedicated government-civil society effort for its conservation. Dal has not only been evacuated of the scores of illegal structures projecting obnoxiously from its banks but has also been cleared of around four lakh trees which had eaten into three kilometres of its watery expanse. There is still a long way to go but work is on to remove more structures and to move the habitations from inside the water body.

It was the first example when Kashmiris sought their constitutional right and approached the Court to push the government to save Dal Lake – a flagship of Kashmir’s tourism. And the case has ensured a rare coordination between the judiciary and the executive in the valley, especially after the then Chief Justice Bashir Ahmad Khan showed keen interest in it.

The Court order came as a boon. People who earlier offered resistance to restoration work now understand that Government’s hands are tied and thus cooperate in the exercise.

However, the credit goes to the then law student Sheikh Tahir Iqbal who first filed the PIL. "I think in the ongoing Kashmir situation, only court can play an effective role to salvage Dal," Iqbal, who subsequently went to England for further studies, had explained to this reporter as his reason or filing the PIL.

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