The apex court had earlier asked 21 states to apprise it about the action taken by them over the eviction of tribals and forest dwellers whose claim have been rejected.
New Delhi: The central government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against its order asking all states and union territories to evict forest dwellers whose claims have been rejected under the Forest Act, and sought temporary stay on the controversial ruling that could impact about two million tribals and others.
The tribal affairs ministry argued that the rejection of their claims to any rights under the Forest Act does not mean eviction of these people, and urged the top court to ask states for more details on how their claims over forests and forest lands were dealt with in the first place.
“There is no provision in the Act that provides for eviction after a claim is rejected,” the ministry said. “If a claim is rejected, then the state government would be obliged to resort to appropriate provisions to evict a person from the forest in accordance with law.”
The Gujarat government, too, has filed a petition seeking a stay on the top court order that Congress and some other opposition parties plan to make a major issue for the upcoming general election.
The tribal affairs ministry’s application was mentioned on an urgent out of turn basis by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before a bench led by Justice Arun Misra and it will be heard on Thursday.
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It urged the court to direct all states to file affidavits on rejection of claims of FDSTs (forest dwelling scheduled tribes) and OTFDs (other traditional forest dwellers) under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
The ministry urged the court to stop all evictions till that time.
It called for not only the number of rejections from states but also the followup action after rejection of claims.
The application pointed out these communities were extremely poor and illiterate people and not well informed of their rights and procedure.
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It claimed that despite repeated attempts to sensitise state governments, claims were rejected in a summary manner.
To evict forest-dwellers, states were to identify the damage to wildlife caused by their presence and also offer them alternate rehabilitation sites before eviction.
Adityanath celebrates Diwali with forest dwellers in Gorakhpur, visits Ayodhya2023-11-12T12:41:10Z
