Reserved Forests, and the Settlement of Rights

In one line

The State says it intends to reserve a forest, an officer hears everybody who claims a right in it, and what is not claimed in time is gone.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 3 empowers the State Government to constitute any forest land or waste land which is the property of Government, or over which the Government has proprietary rights, or to the whole or part of the forest produce of which the Government is entitled, a reserved forest; section 4 requires a notification of that intention, specifying the situation and limits and appointing a Forest Settlement Officer; section 5 bars the accrual of any fresh right and forbids fresh clearing from the date of that notification; section 6 requires a proclamation calling on every person claiming a right to present a claim within a period of not less than three months; sections 7 to 9 provide for the inquiry, the admission or rejection of claims and the extinction of rights not claimed; section 11 empowers the acquisition of land over which a right is claimed; and section 12 provides for the order.

Why the procedure exists

Because in 1878 the State proposed to take under its control land in which a very large number of people had rights nobody had written down.

A right in a forest is not a title. It is a right of pasture, of taking fuel or timber for domestic use, of collecting minor produce, of a path across, of a watercourse, of shifting cultivation. Almost none of it was recorded anywhere, and almost all of it was exercised by people who could not read the notification announcing that it was about to be extinguished.

So the Act builds a settlement procedure, and the procedure is fair on its face. A claim must be made; a claim not made is lost. That single feature is why the Forest Rights Act, 2006, recites a historical injustice: the procedure assumed a literate claimant with a document, and the people whose rights were at stake had neither.

The provisions

Section 3, power to reserve. The State Government may constitute as a reserved forest any forest-land or waste-land which is the property of Government, or over which the Government has proprietary rights, or to the whole or any part of the forest-produce of which the Government is entitled.

Notice the third limb. The Government may reserve land it does not own, if it is entitled to the whole or part of the forest produce of it.

Section 4, the notification. The State Government shall issue a notification specifying the situation and limits of the land as nearly as possible, declaring that it is decided to constitute it a reserved forest, and appointing an officer, called the Forest Settlement Officer, to inquire into and determine the existence, nature and extent of any rights claimed by or alleged to exist in favour of any person in or over the land or over any forest produce, and to deal with them as provided.