Rampant? Illegal distribution of land titles of India's forest areas to 'ineligible' claimants

Counterview Desk

In a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as many as 63 former Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers, referring to the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 -- or Forest Rights Act (FRA) -- have regretted that Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes (FDST) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) are facing gross injustice because of the misuse of FRA across India.

"The authorities under FRA have exploited ambiguity and guidelines issued by Ministry of Tribal Affairs", with gram sabha meetings being conducted "repeatedly mainly to give patta/titles to ineligible claimants and regularize encroachments", they said.

The representation underlines, the tribals and other forest dwellers are also facing huge loss of forests "due to Individual and Community Forest Rights being because of gross violation of Forest Conservation Act 1980 in various states."

Text:

We are a group of ex-IFS officers watching with extreme concern the illegal distribution of titles of forest rights over forest lands and causing irreversible damage to the forest land including wildlife and forest resources. This is done in the garb of Forest Rights Act 2006 and in utter violation of Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 (FCA), Indian Forest Act 1927 and Wildlife Act 1972.

Parliament legislated the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (FRA) to recognize and vest forest rights on forest lands only in the specifically defined Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes (FDST) & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) and their communities.

For recognizing forest rights and grant of title of forest rights on forest lands, the claimant must establish possession of forest land as on the cutoff date of 13.12.2005 and also on 1-1-2008 as stipulated under FRA 2006. To establish these as well as eligibility, elaborate list of evidences is given in Rule 13(1) of FRA Rules 2008 which ranges from satellite imageries based scientific and impartial evidence to even oral evidence of village elders reduced in writing.

States started the implementation of FRA from 2008 in right earnest but simultaneously fresh encroachment of forest lands by unscrupulous elements got accelerated since the encroachers found a great option in the section 4(5) of FRA which mentions that the claimants cannot be evicted or removed from forest land till the process of forest rights recognition is complete. People encroached overnight and immediately submitted a claim under FRA to the Gram Sabha making the forest department simply helpless in the matter.

Apparently for political dividends, some politicians promised to regularize such encroachments especially before elections to local bodies and state assembly. Just to quote one example, enclosed is a letter written by a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, Telangana, to the State Government on how Ministers, MPs, MLAs and different political parties were publicly promising grant of pattas/titles to post 2005 encroachments too in violation of FRA resulting in encouragement to encroachments and attacks on forest officials.

Management rights are being granted to ineligible communities in all kinds of forest lands and even inside Tiger Reserve areas

In recent years, the authorities under FRA have exploited ambiguity and guidelines issued by Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Gram sabha meetings are conducted repeatedly mainly to give patta/titles to ineligible claimants and regularize encroachments made after 13.12.2005. Surprisingly after 16 years of the Act, in some states ineligible claims extending over lakhs of acres of forest lands are being admitted in violation of FRA and FCA 1980, and primarily on the strength of evidence of village elders while discarding satellite imageries and other public documents listed under Rule 13(1). This is causing gross injustice to the eligible tribals and forest dwellers and is damaging their future for all times to come since huge number of ineligible but powerful people will continue using the resources meant for the genuine beneficiaries under the Act.

As regards community rights, ineligible communities (with people other than FDSTs and OTFDs) have been granted rights without specifying ‘extent’ along with ‘nature’ of the community rights. The uncontrolled extraction under such grants is jeopardizing the sustainability of forest resources as the practice is akin to killing of golden egg-laying goose for quick money. State of Forest Report 2021 by Forest Survey of India has reported that there is a loss of 10,594 sq. km bamboo bearing area in the country between 2019 and 2021. Additionally, in clear violation of sections 3(1)(i) and 4(3) of the Act, management rights are being granted to ineligible communities in all kinds of forest lands and even inside Tiger Reserve areas; some glaring examples being in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Sir, the illegal recognitions are nothing, but a quietly sponsored encroachment backed by powerful people into the rights of genuine Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers and their communities. In the process, the forests which are not only a source of their livelihoods but also provide life sustaining eco-services to one and all, are getting wiped out.

We request you to kindly take immediate cognizance of this extremely serious matter and kindly issue appropriate instructions to all concerned to ensure that FRA is implemented strictly, illegally granted rights are cancelled, and forest rights are vested only in the FDSTs & OTFDs and their communities and not in encroachers.

---

Click here for signatories

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Search This Blog