BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the state and central governments on a public interest litigation filed by an environmental activist challenging the order issued by the state government in 2015, through which it was directed that encroachments on the forest and patta land below three acres should not be evicted.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice CM Poonacha passed the order after hearing the petition filed by one Jagadeesha from Vidyaranyapura in the city.
The petitioner alleged that the 2015 order defeated the object of forest conservation laws by enabling the continued illegal occupation and degradation of forest land.
He stated that he submitted a representation in 2024 to withdraw the order dated September 21, 2015, issued by the state government, wherein it was stated that encroachments in all districts of the state, including encroached forest land and patta land measuring less than 3 acres, should not be evicted until further orders. However, no reply has been received from the authorities to date, despite the serious illegality involved in the impugned government order.
The petitioner stated that even after the lapse of more than 10 years, the state government has neither rehabilitated encroachers holding less than three acres nor taken effective action to evict encroachments exceeding three acres.
Taking advantage of the impugned order, several encroachers have manipulated the situation by artificially dividing large extents of encroached forest land among family members to reduce the individual holdings to less than three acres in order to claim the benefit of the impugned order. The government has failed to take action and implement the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, he alleged.
It was stated in the petition that, in terms of the Government of India orders in 1990, 1996, 2005 and the Government of Karnataka order dated May 5, 1997, steps were required to be taken by the state government to evict all unauthorised encroachments that had taken place on forest land after April 27, 1978. Though the said orders were issued to evict all encroachments and to prevent further instances of encroachment of forest land, and also clarified that no further regularisation was permissible, the encroachment continued.