Following PIL in Gujarat HC, govt 'clears' landownership title for 3,000 Narmada tribals

By A Representative
The Gujarat High Court disposed of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by NGO Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH), through advocate Anand Yagnik for directing the Gujarat government to issue adeshpatras (approval orders) to the district’s tribals whose right to cultivate forest land was approved by the Narmada district level committee.
Yagnik submitted before the division bench consisting of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice JB Pardiwala that an affidavit was filed by the project administrator, Rajpipla, Narmada, in August 2019 stated that 1018 pending claims and 1,376 partially approved claims were approved by the committee in its meeting dated July 9, 2019. Yet no adeshpatras were issued.
Hence, tribals were being their rights, he contended. In response, government pleader Manisha Lavkumar Shah, supporting the case of the petitioner, said that cases of approximately 3,000 tribals had been approved by the committee and all of them would be issued with adeshpatras within four weeks. After the hearing, the High Court disposed of the application recording the statement made by the government pleader.

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