The Indian Forest Act 1927 and the Three Classes of Forest

In one line

How a reserved forest is made, and the settlement of rights that is the ancestor of the sanctuary procedure.

In exam wording: section 3 of the Indian Forest Act 1927 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 any part of the forest-produce of which the Government is entitled, a reserved forest in the manner provided; section 4 requires a notification declaring that decision, specifying as nearly as possible the situation and limits of the land, and appointing a Forest Settlement-officer to inquire into and determine the existence, nature and extent of any rights alleged to exist in favour of any person in or over the land or the forest-produce, with an Explanation that it is sufficient to describe the limits by roads, rivers, ridges or other well-known or readily intelligible boundaries; section 5 bars the accrual of any right after the notification except by succession or under a written grant or contract; section 6 requires a proclamation in the local vernacular in every town and village in the neighbourhood, fixing a period of not less than three months for claims; sections 7 to 9 provide for the inquiry, the officer's powers and the extinction of unclaimed rights; sections 11 to 16 for orders on claims and their acquisition or commutation; sections 17 to 19 for appeals; and section 20 for the notification declaring the forest reserved, from the date of which it is deemed a reserved forest.

Section 1: short title and extent. The Act may be called the Indian Forest Act 1927, and section 2 carries the definitions, of which forest produce in clause (4), timber in clause (6) and tree in clause (7) are the ones this paper needs.

Section 2(4): forest produce

Two limbs, and the difference between them is where the thing was found.

(a) Whether found in, or brought from, a forest or not: timber, charcoal, caoutchouc, catechu, wood-oil, resin, natural varnish, bark, lac, mahua flowers, mahua seeds, kuth and myrabolams.

(b) When found in, or brought from, a forest: trees and leaves, flowers and fruits and all other parts or produce of trees; plants not being trees, including grass, creepers, reeds and moss, and all parts or produce of such plants; wild animals and skins, tusks, horns, bones, silk, cocoons, honey and wax, and all other parts or produce of animals; and peat, surface soil, rock and minerals including limestone, laterite and mineral oils.

Why this definition is the one to know for Module III. Clause (b)(ii) covers any plant that is not a tree, and every part of it, when found in or brought from a forest. So a medicinal root taken from a forest is forest produce, and the Act's controls on removal, transit and possession apply to it, whether or not the species is a specified plant under the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.