Samatha: Mining in a Scheduled Area

In one line

A regulation forbidding the transfer of land in a Scheduled Area to anybody but a tribal binds the State Government too, so the State cannot lease its own land there for mining to a non-tribal.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: in Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1997 SC 3297, the Supreme Court held by majority that the word "person" in the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation includes the State Government, so that a mining lease of Government land in a Scheduled Area to a non-tribal is a prohibited transfer; that the State may not transfer such land to a non-tribal except to its own instrumentality, a lease to the A.P. State Mineral Development Corporation being upheld as an entrustment for a public purpose, or to a co-operative society composed solely of tribals; that where the State leases its land in a Scheduled Area to non-tribals to exploit minerals, those who exploit the resources take over its constitutional obligations to the tribals and should set apart at least twenty per cent of the net profits as a permanent fund for the tribals' water, schools, hospitals, sanitation and roads, over and above the cost of reforestation; and it upheld the finding that the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, applies to a renewal.

The constitutional setting

Article 244 and the Fifth Schedule create a distinct legal regime for the Scheduled Areas.

Paragraph 5(1) of the Fifth Schedule allows the Governor to direct that a law of Parliament or of the State legislature shall not apply to a Scheduled Area, or shall apply subject to exceptions and modifications.

Paragraph 5(2) allows the Governor to make regulations for the peace and good government of a Scheduled Area, and in particular to prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes, to regulate the allotment of land to them, and to regulate money-lending to them.

The Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation of 1959, as amended in 1970, was made under that paragraph. As amended it provided that any transfer of immovable property in a Scheduled Area by a person, whether or not a member of a Scheduled Tribe, to any person other than a member of a Scheduled Tribe shall be absolutely null and void, and it raised a presumption that immovable property in a Scheduled Area was tribal land until the contrary was proved.

The case

Facts. The State of Andhra Pradesh granted mining leases of Government land in the Scheduled Areas of the State to non-tribal persons and to Government corporations, and renewed existing leases. Samatha, a social organisation, challenged the grants. Two Division Benches of the High Court had taken inconsistent views; one had held that the Regulation and the Mining Act did not prohibit the grant of mining leases of Government land in a Scheduled Area to non-tribals, that the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, did not apply to renewals, and that the State Forest Act did not apply either.