Procedures violated; Rights body demands findings reports for Scheduled Tribe, Other Traditional Forest Dwellers claims
As many as 150,000 applications for individual forest rights in Odisha have been rejected without reason, a national forum representing tribal communities and forest dwellers has alleged, calling for a review.
The Odisha chapter of Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD)— a national platform of tribal and forest dwellers’ organisation — and Gram Sabhas Collectives from 18 districts dominated by tribal communities have demanded a review over rejection of the claims,
The claimants alleged they were not informed or allowed to appeal against the rejection by the district-level committee (DLC) or the sub-divisional level committee (SDLC).
The state government must direct the SDLC and the DLC to follow proper procedure and return all the pending, incomplete, or rejected claims with findings reports, CSD demanded on November 7, 2022.
Read more: Forest conservation & consent: How Gram Sabhas halted risky projects in the past
The reports must be submitted directly to the Gram Sabhas under Rule 12A of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (FRA) 2012 amendment. CSD also demanded a review of the rejected claims filed by the Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD).
By August 2022, around 140,347 IFR claims — 70,984 Scheduled Tribe claims and 69,399 OTFD ones — had been rejected at the DLC level in Odisha.
Several claims were filed many years ago and rejected long back, but the applicants were not informed, CSD said in a press note.
“Such massive rejections of IFR claims were without any intimation to the claimants or Gram Sabhas prescribed under Rule 12A (sub-rule 6,7,10) of Amended Rules 2012,” read the release. “The violation of the procedures in the processing of the claims is common in all the districts.”
SDLCs and DLCs had rejected OTFDs claims outright because of the lack of clarity and improper understanding about the eligibility, the forum further said. The types of evidence required by the officials responsible for the processing of claims in the two committees was also missing, it added.
“The implementing authorities have taken a fully biased approach towards OTFDs, even though Parliament itself has vested its complete faith in them when enacting this law and given OTFDs the same rights and powers as forest dwelling STs under FRA,” CSD said.
In 2019, a Supreme Court of India ordered chief secretaries of states to comply with the FRA rules and submit affidavits on the details of procedures followed for settlement of claims, orders of rejection of claims and main grounds of rejection, CSD noted.
Chief secretaries also had to state whether tribals were given opportunities to adduce the evidence.
Still, the state governments at the SDLC and DLC level adopted a Camp Court method and conducted the public hearings bypassing the authority and functions of Gram Sabha to take free, fair and conflict-neutral decisions, further violating the SC’s order to follow due procedures, the forum added.
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