Context: Recently the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has objected to the transfer of thousands of hectares of land without following due process by Chhattisgarh as it was given “by mistake” to the Forest Department.

• The Ministry had warned that the land in question is “undemarcated protected forests”, which cannot be given away without forest clearance under the Forest Conservation (FC) Act, 1980.

Categories of Forest

The state Forest Departments have jurisdiction over two types of forests notified under the Indian Forest (IF) Act, 1927:

• Reserved Forest- The type of forest where no rights are allowed unless specified.

• Protected Forests (PF)- The type of forest where no rights are barred unless specified.

The village or nagarpalika forests are managed by state Revenue Departments.

• The FC Act, 1980 is applied to all kinds of forests, whether under the control of the Forest or the Revenue Department.

•  It requires statutory clearance before forests can be used for any non-forest purpose such as industry, mining, or construction.

• In 1976, forests were included in List III (Concurrent List) under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Definition of Forest

• India’s definition of forest has been taken on the basis of three criteria and very well accepted by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for their reporting/communications.

Forest is defined structurally on the basis of

• Crown cover percentage: Tree crown cover- 10 to 30% (India 10%)

• Minimum area of stand: area between 0.05 and 1 hectare (India 1.0 hectare) and

• Minimum height of trees: Potential to reach a minimum height at maturity in situ of 2 to 5 m (India 2m).

• The forest cover is defined as ‘all land, more than one hectare in area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10 % irrespective of ownership and legal status. Such land may not necessarily be a recorded forest area. It also includes orchards, bamboo and palm’.

• The Supreme Court gave a broad definition of forests in 1996.

• As per the Supreme Court’s definition, any land that is part of the (forest) working plan or under the control of the Forest department is forest land. Irrespective of tree cover, grasslands or rocky surfaces are also forest land.

Chhattisgarh case

• The recorded forest area in Chhattisgarh covers 44.21% of its geography. 

• The state government claims that there is a lack of land available for development projects, particularly in the tribal areas.

• In March 2022, Chief Minister has announced that over 300 sq km of “Orange” area in the Bastar region had been handed over to the Revenue Department.

Orange Area

• Under the zamindari system, villagers used local malguzari (livelihood concessions) forests for firewood, grazing, etc.

• The forest came under the Revenue Department when zamindari was abolished in 1951.

• In 1958, the government of undivided Madhya Pradesh notified all these areas as Protected Forests under the Forest Department.

• Ground surveys and categorizations of these Protected Forests continued till 1960s, either to create blocks of suitable patches for declaration as Reserve Forests or to denotify and return to the Revenue Department.

• Madhya Pradesh amended the Indian Forest Act, 1927, in 1965 when forests figured in the State List to allow denotification of Protected Forests.

• The undemarcated Protected Forests (areas still to be surveyed) were highlighted in orange.

Background of the issue

• The transfer of PFs to the Revenue Department continued until 1976.

• Madhya Pradesh seek a fresh survey to shift quality forest patches back to the Forest Department. But the new government in 1978 had switched the focus to settling encroachments.

• The Forest Conservation Act came in 1980, and required central clearance for non-forest use of forest land. 

• It led to a situation where the rights of villagers, including those settled by the government through pattas, remained restricted.

• In 2020, a task force set up by Madhya Pradesh to resolve the deadlock recommended that patta-holders should not be considered encroachers since they were given land by government officials.

After MP was split

• Chhattisgarh inherited its share of ‘orange’ areas after it carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000.

• It ranked second after Orissa in implementing the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

• The logical next step for Chhattisgarh was to find land for the economic development of the tribal belt. But in that process, it did not seek central clearance to transfer over 300 sq km to Revenue department.

Different views on the issue

• A visual survey cannot determine if a particular piece of land did not meet the definition of forest at the time when it was brought under the Forest Department.

• An area gets the status of forestland as per the 1996 SC order, and hence comes under the FC Act, 1980 after it has been brought under the Forest Department, whether mistakenly or otherwise.

• Due to 1965 amendment to the IF Act, Chhattisgarh can still denotify Protected Forests unilaterally.

• It may also vest management of any land with any department since the state owns all land within its boundaries. 

• However, if the stated purpose is non-forest use such as the construction of industries and infrastructure, the state will still require central clearance under the FC Act of 1980.