Over 50 cases pile up in HC over private forest land ownership in Pune

The Bombay High Court had recently directed the state government to implement the Supreme Court order of January 2014.

Pune district forest department officials have to represent themselves in the Bombay High Court for more than 50 cases pertaining to ownership of private forest land in September.

As per the Supreme Court ruling in January 2014, the process of removing the tag of ‘private forest land’ has not been completed by the state government and more than one lakh hectares of land in Pune district, which come under this tag, needs to be denotified.

“There are at least 52 cases that have been filed by the residents claiming private forest land. This issue has been pending after the Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Company won the case for Mumbai regarding private forest land. Now, many persons in Pune have come forward to remove the entries of ‘private forest land’ from their records,” said senior Pune forest official. However, in the Mumbai case, there were already constructions on the private forest land, added the official.

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The Bombay High Court had recently directed the state government to implement the Supreme Court order of January 2014. The High Court said that the government should take a policy decision and if necessary, issue a government resolution on private land in accordance with the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

The ruling was a major relief to many people that own private forest land across the state.

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