Assam: Gauhati HC directs families residing in Doyang, Nambar forests to vacate within seven days

Guwahati (Assam) [India], August 19 (ANI): The Gauhati High Court has directed the families residing inside the Doyang and Nambar Forests in Assam Golaghat district to vacate the forest area within seven days.

We have already given an extended period to the appellants to make good their exit from the forest area. If the appellants do not leave the forest area within a further period of seven days, to be counted from today (August 18), the State would proceed against them for eviction, the Gauhati High Court said.

The High Court also directed the Assam government to ensure that a proper check mechanism is put in place, which would prevent any illegal entry in the reserved forest area.

Fifty-nine of the appellants had challenged the notices dated July 24, issued to them, asking them to vacate the forest land within seven days.

Hearing a petition, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury on Monday said that, It could be by way of checking the entry points, putting barbed wires at porous borders and setting up functional check posts. All these would become effective, if and only if the officers/persons managing such check posts do their job honestly as also efficiently. In all fitness of things, the State must come up with necessary regulations in that regard and if ever it is found that such illegal entry in the reserved forest area is because of collusion of forest officials, or other ministerial staff, necessary penal action should be initiated against them.

In fact, if the State is serious about preserving the pristine forests/reserved forests of the State, it should come up with a regulation whereby even the officers and ministerial staff in the forest department would be held responsible for any unauthorised/illegal entry in such reserved forests. A periodical review of the situation would further help build an institutional mechanism for preventing such unauthorised entry into the reserved forest area. Constant surveillance in the reserved forest area would also be required to ensure that the encroachers do not again enter the reserved forests and spoil the ecological balance, the bench added.

The order copy of the Gauhati High Court also stated that if such drive is undertaken for clearing the reserved forest area of all encroachments and if it is found that there are some settlers, even though unauthorised, they ought to be given a reasonable period of time of 15 days, to explain under what circumstances they had set up their residence inside the reserved forest area where any non-forest activity or their presence attracts penal offence, and a further period of 15 days, for exiting the place on being asked to do so. Notwithstanding the fact that no procedure has been delineated, it would be only in the interest of justice that a notice of 15 days and a further time of 15 days be given to such squatters/encroachers to leave the reserved forest area.

It also stated that, in any reserved forest, any act of clearing of forests by an encroacher, or setting fire, or continuing with any activity is strictly prohibited.

There could be no way in which the land in the reserved forest could be used for any purpose whatsoever. While hearing these appeals, this Court also noted the submissions of the learned Advocate General that in the State of Assam, 29 lakh Bighas of land in the reserved forests have been occupied by the encroachers, and because of the intensive drive undertaken by the State Government, more than 1 lakh Bigha of land has already been cleared from encroachment. It was only a part of the same anti-encroachment drive that the notices impugned in the writ petition were issued to the appellants, the order copy stated.

In the affidavit on behalf of the State, sworn by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of the Forest Force, Assam, it has been stated that even in the absence of any procedure for eviction of encroachers from the reserved forest land, the appellants were issued notice intimating them that they had illegally entered in the Doyang and Nambar reserved forest and are required to exit from the forest area within seven days.

The affidavit further elucidates that Regulations 24 and 25 of the Assam Forest Regulation, 1891, provide for penalties for trespass and damage to any reserved forest.

In this view of the matter, there cannot be any question of permitting any encroacher to reside within the demarcated reserved forest land. Even if, for some inaction on the part of the forest official, some persons in the past were allowed entry in the reserved forest area, who continued to stay there, they would have no enforceable right against the government when such eviction drive is undertaken, the Gauhati High Court said in its order.

The Gauhati High Court order said that with respect to the particular reserved forest of Doyang, the affidavit of the State clearly indicates that to date, 320 numbers of dwelling houses and other structures, illegally erected, have been removed and about 400 Bighas of reserved forest land have been made encroachment-free.

According to the information received, the appellants and many other similarly situated persons were indulging in commercial farming of betel-nut trees and had also set up fisheries. This appears to us to be shocking. It really calls for a total revamp/restoration of the State mechanism to prevent any such infiltration in the reserved forest areas, the High Court added in its order.

Another shocking fact disclosed in the affidavit of the State is that some commercial shops were also found existing inside the forest area. Those also fortunately have been dismantled during this anti-encroachment drive. The contention of the State is that apart from the appellants, all other encroachers/noticees in the area in question have already made their exit and they have returned to their original native places in the districts of Nagaon, Morigaon, Cachar, Hailakandi, Barpeta etc., said in the order. (ANI)

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