The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 seeks to recognise and give forest rights, including forest land, to Scheduled Tribes and traditional forest dwellers. It was notified this January after a protracted battle between wildlife experts and tribal activists.

The notification was not the last word on the contentious Act. There have been a total of six petitions filed since the Act was notified — the other four being in the High Courts of Chennai, Madurai, Mumbai and Hyderbabad.

The Madras High Court has already granted a stay on granting of pattas, in effect stalling the implementation of the Act. It is for the first time that the case will come up for hearing in the apex court.

The first petition that was filed by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has raised 23 questions on the implementation of the Act. Apart from the legal validity of the Centre distributing land, it also points to several ambiguities in the Act that will make implementation next to impossible.

It has illustrated through several historical instances that several tribal welfare measures have been left incomplete. It has questioned several clauses in the Act that are vague like the definition of ‘customary boundary of the village’, the powers of the Gram Sabha and the ‘other forest dwellers’.

The second petition is by a conglomerate of wildlife organisations — Wildlife First, Nature Conservation Society and Tiger Research and Conservation Trust. Like BNHS, they have challenged the legal and constitutional validity of the Act. They go on to say that it violates the fundamental rights of the petitioners guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution as it is against principles of sustainable development.

However, tribal groups see this as an attempt to sabotage the Act. “What we have is a planned, orchestrated offensive against the Forest Rights Act, using the courts as a platform. This is not new. We have time and again seen this group, a handful of hardline conservationists, take advantage of their access to money, power and the bureaucracy to block and sabotage the struggle for forest rights,” said a release from the Campaign for Survival and Dignity.