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Lakhs of forest dwellers face eviction

A recent Supreme Court order may lead to the eviction of lakhs of persons belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) categories across 21 States

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Why in news?

  • A recent Supreme Court order may lead to the eviction of lakhs of persons belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) categories across 21 States
  • Nearly 1 million tribal people across the country are currently at the risk of eviction from various forestlands as they have failed to claim that they are forest-dwellers as prescribed under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
  • A three-judge Bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee on February 13 had ordered the Chief Secretaries of many of these States to evict.

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Statistics:
  • 7,67,467 ST claims were rejected, 4,45,047 OTFD claims were rejected in 17 states.
  • Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of claims rejected.
    (1) Andhra Pradesh: 66,351 claims rejected
    (2) Karnataka: 35, 521 ST claims and 1,41,019 OTFD
    (3) Kerala: 39,999 ST claims and 894 OTFD
    (4) Tamil Nadu: 7148 ST claims and 1811 OTFD
    (5) Telangana: 82,075 claims rejected
Background:
  • The FRA was passed by the UPA govt. in 2006.
  • According to the Act, persons who have been either traditionally residing in forests or forestland for over 75 years and/or traditionally dependent on forest produce for livelihood are the eligible.
  • The Act also recognises other rights to tribals and traditional forest dwellers in India.
  • including rights to waterbodies and power to protect, conserve and manage community forest resources.
  • Incidentally, the FRA was introduced to address the historic injustice due to the colonial forest laws.
Centre instituted Act, but fails to defend it:
  • Central government and state governments failed to react and give a viable solution.
  • On January 29, 2016, the Supreme Court directed the states to file affidavits to show the status of the claims from these tribal members.
  • Then, on February 13, the Central government failed to present its lawyers to defend the Act.
  • Orders given by SC:
  • The court ordered the Forest Survey of India (FSI) to make a satellite survey and place on record the encroachment positions.
  • It directed FSI to also place on record the position after the eviction as far as possible.

Source

The Hindu
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