Scheduled Tribes panel requisitions FRA implementation reports from Supreme Court

The NCST is in the middle of a face-off with the government over the new Forest Conservation Rules (2022) potentially diluting the Forest Rights Act, 2006

In the middle of a face-off with the Environment Ministry over the new Forest Conservation Rules (2022) potentially diluting the Forest Rights Act, 2006, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has now secured FRA implementation reports of all States and Union Territories by invoking its Constitutional powers to directly approach the Supreme Court of India.

After the Union government introduced the FCR, 2022 last year, the NCST had written to the Environment Ministry in September, asking that they be put on hold because they will invariably violate provisions of the FRA, which ensures that ownership of forest land remains with tribespeople and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFD), who live off the forest and its resources.

In response, Minister for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, Bhupendra Yadav had insisted that the rules were framed under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and that the NCST’s apprehension of these rules being in violation of the FRA was “not legally tenable”.

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Amidst this, the ST Commission on February 3 wrote to the Supreme Court Registrar, invoking powers under Clause 8d of Article 338A, to seek all materials filed before the court in connection with a batch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of the FRA. The top court on February 20 ordered that the documents be supplied to the Commission.

Sources in the NCST said that the Commission is looking to review the overall implementation of the FRA at the ground level, examine rejection of titles, encroachments on forest land, and propose requisite recommendations to further secure the rights of tribespeople, as per its Constitutional mandate.

“This will be part of the report sent to the Office of the President of India, who will then table it in Parliament. Hence, we went to court for ‘authentic information’,” the source said.