Karnataka withdraws order stopping forest officials from issuing eviction notices

A deputy conservator of forest said on the condition of anonymity, “The earlier order was withdrawn following huge backlash. Moreover, the earlier order was not welcomed by forest officials either.”

Environment conservationists had an apprehension that stopping forest officials from issuing eviction orders would embolden encroachers. Veerendra Patil, a lawyer who has been fighting legal battles against illegal encroachment of forests in Shivamogga, explained, “There is a difference between ‘not to be evicted’ and ‘not to conduct eviction proceedings’. The forest department in its earlier order had explicitly stopped the officials from conducting eviction proceedings. The law states that a person occupying the forest land should not be evicted till his application under FRA is under consideration but it does not stop the Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) from carrying out eviction proceedings against the encroachers itself. Once an eviction order under 64 A of the Karnataka Forest Act 1963 is issued, the dweller or encroachers of the forest land have a right to appeal four times and this process takes more than 25 years. The earlier order of the additional principal chief conservator of forest (land record) was against the law.”

In a February 22 meeting chaired by Minister for Social Welfare and Other Backward Classes Welfare Kota Srinivas Poojary, the effectiveness of the implementation of the FRA was reviewed. The minister issued directions to the forest department to inquire into the encroachment of forest land as per the Karnataka Forest Act 1963 and 1964.

Former principal chief conservator of forest (head of forest force) B K Singh said local politicians pampered the encroachers by getting the reverification of their claims under the FRA delayed.

“Individual forest rights and community forest rights are to be recognised under Forest Rights Act 2006. If a tribal claimant is in occupation of forest land as on December 13, 2005 and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFD) are in occupation for 75 years as on this date, they should be in occupation of the land since 1930. When the claims are rejected by district level committees, they can continue to be under occupation till the claims are reverified as per a Supreme Court order in February 2019,” Singh said.

The former official further said that the communities continued to reoccupy additional forest lands and stake claims with the help of local politicians. “The forest department must remove all encroachments that are not on the list of reverification cases as on the date of the February 2019 Supreme Court order. Suspending encroachment clearance is bound to encourage more encroachments,” he said, adding that the department would end up becoming a silent spectator to endless deforestation.