Inclusive development and Forest Right Act 2006: A critical look

• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Author: Jayaram Singh Samal
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2474

COMMENTARY

Inclusive development and Forest Right Act 2006:

A critical look

Jayaram Singh Samal

Department of Political Science, Model Degree

Collage, Nayagarh, Odisha, India

Correspondence

Jayaram Singh Samal, Department of Political

Science, Model Degree College, Nayagarh

752079, India.

Email: samal.jayaram@gmail.com

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest

Rights) Act (FRA), 2006 is framed to undo the "historical injustice" suffered by com-

munities living or dependent on the forest resources of India. The act for the first

time recognized customary rights of indigenous forest-dwelling communities over

the forest. The underlined idea is to achieve inclusive development, where the most

marginalized community can have a say in the process of development. The paper

looks into the issues in relation to implementation of the act in the background of last

year’s Indian Supreme Court Judgment. It investigates into the process of the emer-

gence of the act. It reviews the range of forest rights deprivations in the act and how

they came about. For instance how over emphasis is given to recognize individual

forest rights other than community forest rights and community forest resources

rights. It seeks to investigate how in-spite of operational limitations, the act has sig-

nificant implication on the livelihood of forest dwellers and the conservation of for-

ests. In the long run an effective and comprehensive FRA has potential in achieving

larger goal of inclusive development.

1|INTRODUCTION

In response to an 11-year-old public interest litigation filed by wildlife

activists challenging the Forest Right Act (FRA) the Supreme Court

(SC) on February 13, 2019, ordered that all households whose claim

of rights under FRA have been rejected should be evicted from forests

by July 2019. The case was filed by wildlife conservationist against

claimants, whose appeal has been rejected under FRA. These claim-

ants are alleged to be occupying a huge area of forest land; this

includes area within national park and sanctuaries seriously

compromising conservation of forest and wildlife. As per Ministry of

Tribal Affair, a total of 42 lakhs claim under FRA have been made, out

of which a total of 18,89,835 titles were granted over 72,000

sq. hector forest land and 14.77 lakhs claim were rejected by Gram

Saba as ineligible (Bhargava, 2019). So this order of evacuation by the

Supreme Court is against such rejected claims. Naturally, this order

has created huge cry and criticism. Tribal right activists and civil soci-

ety members protested and dubbed the order as discriminatory and

against the spirit of the FRA. Under such circumstances, the central

government filed a review petition and the Supreme Court temporar-

ily stayed its order on February 28th. In its stay order, SC seeks report

from the state governments on whether due process was followed

while rejecting the claims under FRA. So the highest court became

apprehend of the process of implantation of the act.

1.1 |Conflicting claims

The Forests Rights Act was designed to undo “historical injustice”to

the tribal. The eligibility to get the rights under this act is confined to

those who primarily reside in the forest and who is depend on forest

and forest land for livelihood before December 2005. The Act has

stipulated a three-step transparent procedure to determine who is

entitled to the rights under the act and to what resources

(Sharma, 2017). Since there is no cutoff date for receiving claims, and

Gram Sabhas are empowered to extend the 90-days window, this pro-

cess has continued for 13 years and seems to be a never-ending one.

So Supreme Court through this judgment intends check this process.

In the wake of this judgment, different arguments are now being

forwarded for a high rate of rejection. Tribal rights activists claim that

due process has not been followed and most of the claims have been

rejected based on flawed methodologies. In many cases, claims have

Received: 21 August 2020 Accepted: 8 September 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2474

J Public Affairs. 2021;21:e2474. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of4

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2474