No penal provisions in Forest Rights Act, Forest Dept.’s answer to SC

Rejected claims of forest rights are set to become the next bone of contention between the claimants and the Forest Department.

With regard to a Supreme Court’s directive asking details of action taken against the forest rights claimants whose claims have been rejected, the Telangana Forest Department has written to the government that there was no provision in the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (commonly known as Forest Rights Act or ROFR Act), to penalise such claimants. Telangana was, incidentally, one among the eight states pulled up and fined by the Apex Court in April this year for not furnishing the details on time. Along with Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana State government was asked to pay costs of ₹50,000 to be deposited with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee for utilisation in juvenile justice issues.

“We are imposing costs since the matter pertains to rights of tribals, and therefore the State should take the matter somewhat more seriously than what they have been doing,” the order said, with regard to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO Wildlife First against the Ministry of Environment and Forests. During the previous hearing in March, the SC had asked for details such as the number of claims for forest rights, categorised between tribals and traditional forest dwellers, number of rejected claims, extent of land over which claims were made and rejected in the two categories, action taken against the rejected claimants, the status of their eviction, and the extent of area in respect of which eviction has not yet taken place.

The time given was four weeks, but no State could come up with the details within the duration, except Jharkhand, which had furnished only partial details. As per the information available on the website of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in TS, individual forest rights were accorded to 93,639 claimants for over more than three lakh acres of forest land. Close to 90,000 claims were rejected over three lakh more acres, which entitles the govt. to evict them under the Forest Act, sources informed. However, no action has been taken so far, and those without rights are still in occupation of the forest land. Managing Trustee of the Wildlife First Praveen Bhargav said that of a total of 44 lakh claims nationwide, 22.5 lakh have been rejected and no attempt has been made to evict those claimants. Dismissing the excuse of the Forest Dept. that the ROFR Act has no penal provisions, Mr. Bhargav cited an earlier observation by the SC in 2016, that such claimants were to be evicted.