Supreme Court Stays Eviction Of 11 Lakh Households From Forest Land Following Centre’s Application

A bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Justices Arun Mishra, Justices Navin Sinha and M.R. Shah has passed a stay on a previous order of the apex court directing several state governments to evict 11 lakh or so households from forest areas whose claims had been rejected under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA), reports The Hindu.

The bench has however vowed to not spare “the mighty and the undeserving” responsible for encroaching upon forest lands.

The court agreed that the issue of whether authorities had followed due process in scrutinising the claims to forest land of applicants under the FRA needs to be further analysed.

States have now been directed by the apex court to respond within four months to contentions of irregularities in the processing of claims, including a high rate of rejections, non-communication of rejection orders, impractical timelines for deciding claims, etc.

The court’s order came following an application by the Centre praying for grant of relief to the large number of “poor and illiterate” families till the time information was furnished by the states through proper affidavits to show whether proper procedure was followed in deciding the claims.

The Centre also contended that the FRA should be interpreted favourably for the poor since it was a beneficial legislation.

The court was however displeased with the centre’s inaction for the last three years in reviewing the situation regarding the processing of claims, considering that the recent order of eviction was only following up on a previous judgment passed on 29 January 2016 by the apex court.