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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Millions at Risk of Eviction as Modi Govt Shies Away from Coordinating States to Review Forest Rights Claims -Ayaskant Das

Millions at Risk of Eviction as Modi Govt Shies Away from Coordinating States to Review Forest Rights Claims -Ayaskant Das

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published Published on Jul 8, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 8, 2021

-Newsclick.in

In the lack of specific guidelines and a central monitoring mechanism, the process to review forest rights claims has varied across states.

With the Modi government abdicating its responsibility of playing a coordinating role in reviewing settlements of claims on forest land, large number of rejections, in many instances above 50%, are being reported from various states. The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) is yet to set any specific guidelines more than two years after the Supreme Court asked state governments to review rejected claims on forest land under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

In accordance with an order issued in February 2019 by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, state governments are at present conducting reviews of claims over forest land that they had already rejected. These claims had been filed as individual and community rights in accordance with the Forest Rights Act, 2006 which is otherwise known as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

In the absence of a central monitoring mechanism and specific guidelines, there is variance in methods applied by state governments to conduct reviews of rejected claims. Consequently, the risk of legitimate claimants being declared encroachers upon their own land is expected to be quite high – which might be in several millions.

As per the latest data of MoTA, a total number of 20,01,919 claims over forest land – in terms of both individual and community rights – had been rejected across the country by the end of February 2021, as against exactly the same number of claims that have been accepted. This works out to roughly 45% rejections across the country, with another 4.61 lakh claims pending for disposal. These figures will be considered as final when presented in the Supreme Court since it is a review that is being conducted in accordance with its orders.

“Madhya Pradesh is conducting reviews of claims through a web-based application. In Odisha, there have been allegations that in certain instances reviews took place directly at district headquarters bypassing Gram Sabhas. There is lack of uniformity in the approach adopted by different state governments in reviewing claims that had earlier been rejected by them. Numbers of rejections following the reviews have also been quite high in many states,” said Odisha-based forests rights’ researcher Tushar Dash.

Are the reviews, even if they lack uniformity across states, being conducted in line with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006?

Please click here to read more. 


Newsclick.in, 8 July, 2021, https://www.newsclick.in/Millions-Risk-Eviction-Modi-Govt-Shies-Away-Coordinating-States-Review-Forest-Rights-Claims


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