The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed a batch of petitions filed by residents of Mithiravayal and Monnani villages in Sivaganga district seeking patta for land that comes under the control of Forest Department.
A Division Bench of Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and S. Ananthi said the petitioners claimed that since the time of their forefathers, for a period of 75 years, they were carrying out agricultural activities in the land that was indisputably reserved forest area.
Though such claims had been made by the petitioners, not a single scrap of paper was produced before the court to at least prima facie show that the villagers and their forefathers had been cultivating the land for 75 years, the court said.
The judges observed that the reason why the petitioners would contend that they and their forefathers were cultivating the land for 75 years was to bring themselves within the definition of ‘other traditional forest dwellers’ as per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights), Act, 2006.
The ‘other traditional forest dwellers’ had been defined to mean any member or community who had for the last three generations prior to December 13, 2005 primarily resided in and depended on forest or forest land for bona fide livelihood needs. The claim made for patta for a land that was a wildlife sanctuary was thoroughly misconceived.
As per the direction of the Supreme Court, if the area had been classified as forest, no patta could be granted. And if there were encroachments, they had to be removed. That apart, land classified as forest poramboke had to be used only for forestry purposes, the court added.
