The Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam 1980

In one line

Five sections, later grown to ten, that take away from every State Government the power to let go of a forest.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 2 provides that notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force in a State, no State Government or other authority shall make, except with the prior approval of the Central Government, any order directing that a reserved forest cease to be reserved, that forest land be used for any non-forest purpose, that forest land be assigned by way of lease or otherwise to any private person or any authority, corporation, agency or organisation, or that forest land be cleared of trees which have grown naturally in it for the purpose of using it for reafforestation.

The name, and why it matters

The Act was enacted as the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. Section 1(1) now reads that it may be called the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, the name given by the amending Act of 2023. The old name survives nowhere in the operative text.

Section 1(2): it extends to the whole of India. Section 1(3): it shall be deemed to have come into force on the 25th day of October, 1980, the date of the Ordinance it replaced. Section 5 repeals the Forest (Conservation) Ordinance, 1980, and saves everything done under it.

A student writing on this Act must give both names, because MU's papers and every textbook use the old one, and the statute book uses the new one. Write it as "the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, formerly the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980", once, and then use whichever you please.

Section 2: the restriction

Read the opening words first. "Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force in a State". That is a non obstante clause aimed at State law, and it is what makes the Act work: every State forest statute, every land revenue code and every rule under them yields to it.

Then read who is bound. "No State Government or other authority." Not a private person. The Act does not prohibit a citizen from doing anything; it prohibits a Government from ordering it. That is the single most misunderstood feature of the statute, and it explains why the penalty in section 3A is so small and why section 3B is directed at Government departments and authorities.

Then the four prohibited orders.

Clause (i), de-reservation. That any reserved forest, within the meaning of that expression in any law for the time being in force in that State, or any portion of it, shall cease to be reserved. So section 27 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, can no longer be exercised by a State alone.