MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the registry of the court to place the matter about the rehabilitation of Manjolai tea estate workers before a special bench constituted to hear cases pertaining to forests.
A division bench of Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri, while hearing a batch of petitions, said the issue for consideration is regarding the rehabilitation and resettlement of the workers, who have made claims as traditional forest dwellers under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
“Since the region is notified as a tiger reserve, it is fit to be heard by the special bench,” said the court. During the previous hearing, the Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation submitted that it could not take over the estate since the area is designated as a core tiger habitat. The court also directed the centre to file a response and directed the batch of cases to be posted before the special bench after two weeks.