Forest land or not? Religious group’s property in South Delhi sparks fresh dispute

In 2023, in an application before the Forest Settlement Officer (FSO), RSSB asked that around 140 bighas in Bhatti be excluded from being marked as forest land. The Additional District Magistrate (ADM) is the FSO, and can examine and decide claims over land that is proposed to be notified as forest land.

The matter was heard last year. In an order issued in October 2024, the FSO allowed RSSB’s petition. The FSO’s reasoning was that unless the lease deeds are challenged by the Forest Department or cancelled by the competent authority, the government cannot place the land at the disposal of the Forest Department, for it to be marked as ‘reserved forest.’

In its arguments before the FSO, RSSB said that in 1988, the land was covered under a section of the Delhi Land Reforms (DLR) Act of 1954. The section refers to land held for purposes connected to agriculture, horticulture, pisciculture, animal husbandry, and poultry farming.

But a Supreme Court order in 1996 had directed that “uncultivated surplus” gaon sabha land falling in the Ridge may be placed at the disposal of the Forest Department to be part of ‘reserved forest’. The Revenue Department had then issued a notification to this effect the same year.

RSSB argued that its land cannot be treated as uncultivated land or as surplus gaon sabha land since it has been leased out by the gaon sabha, and is “cultivated land.”

“Under the DLR Act, the… usage of land even for tree plantation were/are construed as agricultural activities… the said land cannot be treated as waste or uncultivated lands… (it) falls within the category of ‘cultivated lands’ governed under the provisions of the DLR Act,” RSSB argued, going by the FSO’s final order in the case.

Going by RSSB’s arguments, when a notification under the Indian Forest Act of 1927 was issued in 1994 — outlining the contours of the Ridge and proclaiming that all forest land and wasteland which is government property within these areas would be ‘reserved forest’ — the land was “being used for plantation”.

The Forest Department, however, maintained that the land belongs to the gram sabha, at the department’s disposal to be part of ‘reserved forest’.

While a preliminary notification was issued in 1994 marking the contours of the ‘reserved forest’, a final notification protecting the land can only be issued after claims are settled and encroachments removed. The Forest Department noted in its arguments that the final notification cannot be issued since “the land in question has been encroached upon” by the petitioner.

The Forest Department filed an appeal in the matter before the Divisional Commissioner (the appellate authority for cases decided by the FSO), earlier this year.

Referring to the FSO’s order as “bereft of merit”, it stated that the FSO “failed to get the lease deed checked and verified… terms and conditions of the lease, including its validity, tenure and purpose, are crucial to determining the legal status of the land as forest or non-forest…”

The status of the land when the lease deed was executed should also have been checked, it noted.

Stating that the order “would set a wrong precedent”, the Forest Department asked that the FSO’s order be quashed. The matter is pending.

This was among the applications that RSSB filed before the FSO and the Divisional Commissioner, seeking to exclude multiple parcels of land from being notified as forest.

In 2020 and 2021, RSSB filed four applications before the FSO seeking to swap its own land for forest land in Asola and Bhatti. It then withdrew these in 2023 and filed another three applications before the FSO seeking to exclude these lands from forest land.

RSSB’s Asola-Bhatti centre spans around 300 acres. It is the single-largest property owner in Asola-Bhatti with whom the Forest Department is engaged in a tussle over land.

Parts of Delhi’s Ridge area have been built upon over the years, and clearing the land of construction has resulted in long-drawn legal battles between property owners and the Forest Department.

In 2019, a document that marked encroachments in the Ridge, after a joint survey by the Revenue and Forest Departments, was submitted by the then Divisional Commissioner to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in a case seeking protection for the Ridge. In an order in the matter in 2021, the NGT had asked the Delhi government to ensure an action plan is prepared to remove encroachments.