Deeds with wrong names, misplaced applications: Adivasis detail challenges with Forest Rights Act

Kamal Pardhi, an Adivasi woman from Shahpur in Maharashtra’s Thane district, laughed ruefully as she narrated her experience with the Forest Rights Act.

First the good news. After several rounds of applications, her husband, Vithal, was allotted the land title to the 20 ghuntas (half an acre) they had been cultivating. But her happiness was short-lived: the document was in someone else’s name.

Despite several appeals to the authorities, the document has not been corrected. “What am I supposed to do now?” asked Pardhi.

Pardhi’s struggle was among the 40 case studies presented at a Jan Sunwai or public hearing on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Maharashtra’s Konkan region held at the YB Chavan Centre in South Mumbai on February 24.

The hearing had been organised by the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre, the Shoshit Jan Andolan and the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties, Maharashtra, to draw attention to the numerous glitches in the implementation of an act meant to redress historical injustices to Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers.

The Forest Rights Act was passed in 2006 to recognise the rights of Adivasis and other forest dwellers to land, resources and self-governance. It recognises both the forest rights of both individuals and communities. They must prove that they have been on the land before December 13, 2005, the day the legislation was introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Forest rights are approved by a three-tier system of district authorities, starting from the gram sabha, an assembly of all registered voters in a village.

As the case studies at the Jan Sunwai showed, claims for rights are rejected despite rich supporting data: receipts from 75 years ago of having paid cess, photographs of the land and crops being cultivated on it and survey reports.

The case studies showed that community forest rights fared better. However, here too there are problems as forest areas are not mapped completely, so the development funds for the area cannot be claimed.

In Maharashtra, the Forest Rights Act has been implemented for 18 years. While the number of claims approved in the period seems large at 1.48 lakh, a total of 3.99 lakh claims have actually been filed. This works out to an approval rate of 37.1 %, noted Brian Lobo of the Kashtakari Sanghatana, an organisation that works with Adivasis in Dahanu and Palgarh.

Chandrakant Ghak from Dahanu taluka in Palghar district said that though he had been growing rice on a plot of land since 1962, he was denied his rights to it as the government claims it is reserved for a cricket ground. “This was the first I heard of it,” he said. “How is that possible?”

Govind Patil has receipts from 75 years ago proving that his grandfather had been cultivating the land he claimed. But in 2014, his village became part of the Panvel Municipal corporation in Raigad district. No approvals are being given for land titles in urban areas.

Similarly in Mumbai, Adivasis living in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Film City have been struggling to get land rights. Dinesh Habale said that he had applied for forest rights in Habalepada in the National Park in 2019 but it was rejected as the authorities claimed it was not forest land and fell in the park’s eco sensitive zone.

Forest rights can only be granted if an area is declared as a forest.

In Raigad district, Kaluram Bhagat found that his application for one acre of land was rejected because the plot has been earmarked for a golf course. He was allotted only half an acre. Laxman Pawar from the same district found that the land his family had been cultivating has been set aside for a cremation ground.

Bhiva Kadali’s family in Thane district’s Murbad taluka has four land titles but the land was submerged by the backwaters of the Barvi dam in 2015 as it was expanded. His fruit trees and rice crops were destroyed. He has been demanding compensation but he has not been paid anything.

“I have a file full of letters but nothing is happening” Kadali said.

The proceedings indicated that the act needed much more than good intentions to justify its true intent. The case studies of Forest Rights violations prepared by activists Ulka Mahajan, Indavi Tulpule of the Shramik Mukti Sanghatana, Brian Lobo of the Kashtakari Sanghatana and Surekha Dalvi prepared micro- level case studies of Forest Rights Act violations that broadly related to the failure of the government to appoint appropriate committees to decide on the forest rights claims under the law, arbitrarily excluding certain claimants and violations in the process of granting rights.

They found that the forest department had an undue influence in granting rights, and that claims of non-tribals and those living in cities were excluded.

The most serious issue was that the authorities often lost applications. Applicants in many cases submit original documents because photocopying facilities are expensive and hard to come by in some rural areas. They are frequently not given receipts for their applications. But if the authorities misplace the documents, applicants are thrown into confusion.

The authorities also rejected claims even though all supporting documents were available. Even after titles were awarded, they sometimes had the wrong names or there were errors in the survey numbers of plots. Importantly, the state has failed to compensate forest land title holders whose lands were acquired for development projects.

The number of rejected claims ranged from 48% in Thane district and 64.4% in Raigad district to 17.5% in Palghar district. There is also a high rejection rate of appeals in these three districts. In Thane, 8,798 out of 12,404 appeals were rejected. In Palghar, 501 of 1204 appeals were rejected and 696 are pending as of 2025. In Raigad, 1,092 of 1,478 appeals were rejected.

Meena Menon is a freelance journalist, author and researcher.