When gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi decided to throw the gauntlet at the Central Government, he probably did not know that it was the Supreme Court that he was defying. In his “civil disobedience movement” on Gandhi Jayanti, Modi handed over ownership rights of forest land to 30 tribals. He promised to dispatch documents to the remaining 2,204 encroachers soon.

On Friday, responding to an interim application filed by Amicus Curiae Harish Salve, the Supreme Court directed the Gujarat Government to immediately cancel the pattas. They reminded the state that it would be a violation of Supreme Court orders until the Government notifies the Tribal Act passed by Parliament in December 2006.

The application said that there is a procedure laid down for state governments to request regularisation of forest land by applying to the Ministry of Forests and Environment. States like Orissa and Chhatisgarh have followed it in the past. Regularisation of encroachments is the biggest reason for reduction in forest cover, it said.

The matter was brought to the attention of the court by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), the Supreme-Court-appointed panel on forest-related issues. A day after Modi’s public announcement, they had written a strongly-worded letter to the Gujarat Chief Secretary asking him to cancel all the pattas and file an Action Taken Report at the earliest. They had also written to the Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests to conduct an ‘immediate inquiry” and issue “directions” to cancel these allotments.

They had pointed out that Modi’s largesse violates the Supreme Court order of November 2001 that had granted stay against regularisation of the encroachments on forest land prior to October 1980. In addition, the same writ petition had also stayed grants of land titles or regularisation of encroachments till December 1993. “Both the above orders granting stay by the Supreme Court are still continuing. In view of this, grant of titles of forest land to any person will be in violation of the orders of the SC,” said the letter. On October 2, Modi claimed he had forwarded 3,355 applications of tribals for approval under the 1980 Forest Act, but the Central Government failed to give its assent. In his speech, the CM went on to claim that Gujarat was the only state which had handed over ownership rights of over 34,000 hectares of forest land to 45,000 families.

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