BENGALURU: Citing serious procedural lapses, Karnataka has requested the Supreme Court for grant of more time - at least 18 months - for disposing of all claims for forest land made under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. This includes 1.80 lakh rejected claims as well as the 93,342 pending claims. Till date, the state has accepted 14,698 claims for grant of forest lands.
“Till the process of review of all rejected claims is completed, then only the actual number of cases for eviction will be known and action taken,” the state government stated in an affidavit filed before the apex court. Although action has begun for verification and re-verification in the wake of Supreme Court orders on Feb 13, it could not be completed due to lack of time to comply with procedures.
Out of the 1.80 lakh claims rejected by the state government, 34,112 pertain to ST while 1.46 lakh claims are from Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) category. Under OTFD, reportedly 21 per cent claimants have Scheduled Castes which amounts to a whopping 29,810. As it is, out of 2.4 lakh claimants under this category, 91,174 have been rejected while only 2,473 have been accepted. The rest is pending.
In fact, 71 per cent of the rejected claims are from four districts – Uttar Kannada, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru and Belagavi and most of the claims were rejected at the gram sabha level itself. Since there is no deadline for filing for land claims under FRA, claims are still being filed in some districts.
As per official analysis, the procedures followed were faulty as rejections were done in most cases without making a proper detailed inquiry or spot inspections. Further, the Sub Division Level Committees too rejected claims through proceedings instead of passing individual orders. Claims were rejected without giving an opportunity for hearing. The committees insisted for documentary evidence without considering admissible evidence despite provisions under Rule 13 of FRA.
Listing the procedural lapses, the affidavit filed by the state government said, “No notice given to claimants in 1.1 lakh cases. Rejections were carried out in 88,050 cases without passing individual orders. In 12,940 cases, no reasons were assigned for rejections. The three-tier committee, in fact, did not effectively supervise the process of recognition of rights of claimants. No proper opportunity was given for adducing evidence ….”In view of this, the state government has directed all deputy commissioners to initiate suo moto review of all rejected claims by concerned committees. Presently, the process of review of rejected claims is going on in all the districts.