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The Hindu, December 27, 2003, Saturday

Governor sends back Forest Bill

By Our Special Correspondent

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 26.  The Governor, Sikander Bakht, is understood to have sent back to the Government the Bil for the takeover of ecologically fragile lands, passed by the Assembly on August 7 last, since he found it inconsistent with Central conservation laws.  He has asked the Government to send it to the President for his assent.

The main complaint against the Bill, titled the ‘Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Fragile Lands) Bill, 2003’, was about the definition it gave to the term ‘forests’.  The Bill was to replace an ordinance first promulgated in 2000 and reissued several times.  Under the ordinance, an extent of over 25,000 acres of ecologically fragile forest land was taken over by the Government from private individuals to ensure its conservation.

Environmentalists and the Opposition had warned that the Bill, the manner in which it reached the Assembly from the Select Committee of the House, would force the Government to surrender to private individuals a big chunk of the forests taken over from them under the ordinance.  It was also argued that most of these individuals had taken possession of the forests through fraudulent methods.  Despite vociferous protests from the Opposition, the Government had gone ahead with the Bill.

In September, the Leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan, had addressed a letter to the Governor point out the ‘hidden traps’ in the Bill and its legal flaws and requesting him not to sign it.  Any land which is cultivated with crops like coffee, cardamom, coconut or areacanut cannot be described as a forest according to the definition given in the Bill, even if it has predominantly natural vegetation and is ecologically fragile due to its proximity to protected forests.  Also, if there is even a hut pitched in the land, it ceases to be a forest, as per the provisions of theBill.

The only thing a forest encroachers has to do to wriggle out of the Bill’s provision is to plant a few saplings of these trees/plants in the land, or pitch a hut there, it was argued.  He needs to produce no records to show how the saplings or the hut had appeared there.

The Supreme Court had, in its landmark judgment in the writ petition, Godavarman Thirumulpad Vs. Union of Indian in 1995, had defined forests like this: “The word forest must be understood according to its dictionary meaning.  This description covers all statutorily recognized forests, whether or designated as reserved, protected or otherwise for the purpose of Section 2 (1) of the Forest Conservation Act.  The term ‘Forest land’, occurring in Section 2, will not only include ‘forest’ as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in the Government record irrespective of ownership.”

It was more or less the same definition that the term ‘forests’ was given in the original ordinance.  The Opposition’s argument was that the major alterations made in this definition when the Bill was passed would make it legally unacceptable because of the Supreme Court judgment.

Another ‘trap’ was the final clause in the Bill virtually nullifying all the vesting done under the ordinance.  The ‘custodian’ of forests, which in this case is the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, is given the powers to even suo motu review all the vestings done under the ordinance and revoke the orders if necessary.  Mr. Achuthanandan had argued that this clause was introduced to help the ‘forest mafia’.  

The Bill also has a provision for paying compensation for even the natural vegetation occurring in the forests taken over from  the private parties.  In the ordinance, which was to replaced by the Bill, the payment of compensation was restricted to permanent improvements made by him or his predecessor in the ecologically fragile land.  
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The Hindu, December 27, 2003, Saturday

CPI probe into ‘forest deals’ sought

By Our Special Correspondent

Kochi, Dec. 26.  The environmental activist, John Peruvanthanam, has urged the Government to order a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged corruption in the Forest Department.

Mr. Peruvanthanam, the convener of the Paristhithi Samrakshana Ekopana Samiti, said that the Government had lost some 1,400 forest-related court cases because of the collusion between the forest mafia and the Government lawyers.  This had led to the loss of 30,000 hectares of forest.  He claimed that 80,000 ha of forest had been encroached upon by the land-grabbers since 1977, but the authorities concerned had shut their eyes to this pillage of public property.

It may be noted that Eculogue-2003 – an environmental dialogue among journalists, activist and conservation official – held at Munnar recently had asked the Government to “institute a comprehensive inquiry into the reasons why all the forest-related cases are lost in the courts”.

It had noted that over the past two decades the Government had lost almost all the forest-related cases in the court.  “There is a complaint that this is either due to the negligience of the Government advocates or because of their collusion with the forest mafia,” the Ecologue had pointed out.

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