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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Without land or recourse -Kalpana Kannabiran

Without land or recourse -Kalpana Kannabiran

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published Published on Feb 24, 2019   modified Modified on Feb 24, 2019
-The Hindu

The Supreme Court order on the eviction of forest dwellers raises very disturbing questions

The order of the Supreme Court issued on February 13 with respect to the claims of forest-dwelling peoples in India — the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers — is a case of the Supreme Court speaking against itself. In effect, the court has ordered the eviction of lakhs of people whose claims as forest dwellers have been rejected under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, or FRA. That this order negates the claims of citizens under special protection of the Constitution, viz. the Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable communities already pushed by gross governmental neglect precariously to the edge, is another matter altogether. The question before us today centres on the responsibility of the Supreme Court in upholding constitutional claims and equal citizenship.

The background

The order in question was issued in the case of Wildlife First & Ors v. Ministry of Forest and Environment & Ors. The question before the court as stated in the order of 2016 when the matter was last heard related to “the constitutional validity of the [FRA] and also the questions pertaining to the preservation of forests in the context of the above-mentioned Act.” The details regarding claims made under the FRA that were placed before the court by the petitioner in 2016 showed that of the 44 lakh claims filed before appropriate authorities in the different States, 20.5 lakh claims (46.5%) were rejected. The order of 2016 went on to observe: “Obviously, a claim in the context of the above-mentioned Act is based on an assertion that a claimant has been in possession of a certain parcel of land located in the forest areas.” True. A claim is made either for individual or community rights by the people/communities covered by the FRA. This is a plain reading of the Act, which is unambiguous on this score.

From here, however, that order did a jurisprudential somersault to observe, “If the claim is found to be not tenable by the competent authority, the result would be that the claimant is not entitled for the grant of any Patta or any other right under the Act but such a claimant is also either required to be evicted from that parcel of land or some other action is to be taken in accordance with law” (emphasis added). This was the material part of the order. In other words, the claimant cannot contest the decision of the authority, said the court. With respect to action to be taken against those “unauthorisedly in possession of forest land”, the States were then asked by the Supreme Court to report on concrete measures taken to evict the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers from the forest. In the very next paragraph, which pertained to the State of Tamil Nadu, the order referred to action against those people whose claims had been rejected as “eviction of encroachers”.

Please click here to read more.

The Hindu, 23 February, 2019, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/without-land-or-recourse/article26344370.ece


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