After Minister of Tribal Affairs Jual Oram slammed the Maharashtra government last year for diluting the Forest Rights Act through the conflicting Maharashtra Village Forest Rules, 2014, his ministry has issued a fresh reiteration of its stand. Following Maharashtra government's call to keep the rules in abeyance, they also sought the legal opinion of Pinky Anand, additional solicitor general of India and Sunil Manohar, state attorney general to break the impasse with Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). But in a detailed note, MoTA has rebutted the opinion of the senior law officers.
The tribal ministry has said the Maharashtra Village Forest Rules, 2014, are in direct conflict with the Forest Rights Act (FRA), Forest Rights Rules and Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and that the ASG and AG have wrongly interpreted the scope of FRA. The ministry has also pointed out that the Maharashtra government is circumventing a serious constitutional provision by not obtaining consent from the President, to implement these rules.
The Maharashtra Village Forest Rules were framed in May, 2014, during the Congress-NCP alliance government and the Devendra Fadnavis-led government had issued a government resolution to implement them. The rules are seen as a dilution of the Forest Rights Act, as they seek creation of a parallel joint forest committee of the forest department for securing forest produce, taking away the rights vested in tribal communities. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar and Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari had come forward last year to back the Maharashtra government and even asked MoTA to withdraw their objections to it.
In their rebuttal to senior law officers, the MoTA has highlighted that the FRA does not fix a time period for communities of forest dwellers to stake their claims, especially to the community forest resources. In contrast, according to the new rules, communities stand to lose rights over community forest produce if they are slow and the Van Vyavasthapan Samiti's or Joint Forest Management (JFM) Committee's can appropriate them. In addition, the JFM Committee has been given the power to harvest and dispose of minor forest produce, bamboo, tendu and apta, which too is in conflict with FRA that gives these rights to the Gram Sabha. When asked about his endorsement of Maharashtra's new rules, Prakash Javadekar said, "Where there is merit, we will stand by it."
The rules have been severely opposed in densely forested Gadchiroli, where more than 300 villages sent a letter of protest to the Maharashtra governor and state government for the implementation of these rules. Despite MoTA's constant opposition, on ground the Maharashtra government is proceeding with the rules. Dna is in possession of forest department letters where they have asked Gadchiroli's MP Ashok Nete and MLA Devrao Holi to create micro plans for implementation of the rules.
"The state government has been working on proceeding with the Village Forest Rules discretely, despite strong protests from Gram Sabhas. local BJP MPs and MLAs have been active to push it," said Mahesh Raut, an activist from Gadchiroli associated with Bharat Jan Andolan.
