A recent Supreme Court order has directed the Karnataka government to evict 147 people who have together appropriated 611 acres of land in Tathkola reserve forests. One of them ordered to be evicted is B.L. Shankar, now chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council.The three-judge bench comprising outgoing Chief Justice B.N. Kirpal, Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice Arijit Pasayat held that all those encroachers who do not voluntarily hand over the land to the government will have to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh per hectare per month.Land-grabbing and encroachments have been common along the state’s Western Ghats. Large areas of land appropriated are part of forests, making it difficult for the government to prevent encroachment. The issue came into focus when Shankar, then state president of the ruling Janata Dal, was also booked by the Forest Department way back in 1997.Most encroachers blame a boundary dispute between the Forest and Revenue departments. Though it’s believed that most of the encroachers are small farmers who grabbed land for their livelihood, Tathkola’s case reveals a different story: Encroachments above 10 acres account for 58 per cent of the forest land. Eighteen big-time coffee planters alone have together held 353 acres of forest land. A Survey of India map shows Shankar, his father-in-law H.T. Kenche Gowda and his brother B.L. Diwakar as having appropriated 27.67 acres at Survey No 4 of Kenjige Gudda coffee estate.Shankar denies having used his political clout to grab the forest land. He maintains that a number of surveys had established that the land was not part of the forests. Revenue records too had shown that the area was a private land since 1886-87. Shankar argues that the Supreme Court based its order only on Tathkola map even as the survey of Sargodu forests was underway.The Indian Express not only broke the story but ran a series of articles highlighting how rich coffee-planters had expanded their territory to cash in on the demand for coffee in the global market. The series led to a PIL in the Supreme Court by a Chikmagalur-based wildlife activist. In 1998, the Assembly also debated the issue.
