The Supreme Court has reportedly ordered the forced eviction of more than one million tribal and other forest-dwelling households from forestlands across 16 states after the government failed to defend a law protecting their rights.
As per a report in the Business Standard, things are yet to get worse. The final country-wide numbers of forced evictions, the report said, are likely to rise further when other states are forced to comply with the court orders. The court’s orders came in a case filed by wildlife groups questioning the validity of the Forest Rights Act, where the petitioners had also demanded that state governments should evict all those, whose claims over traditional forestlands are rejected under the law.
The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government reportedly failed to present its lawyers in defence of the law on February 13. Consequently, a three-judge bench passed orders giving states governments the deadline of July 27 to evict tribals whose claims had been rejected.
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The court said that the state governments would “ensure that where the rejection orders have been passed, eviction will be carried out on or before the next date of hearing. In case the eviction is not carried out, as aforesaid, the matter would be viewed seriously by this Court.”
The Forest Rights Act was passed during UPA-I and required the government to hand back traditional forestlands to tribals and other forest-dwellers.