SC to hear on Apr 23 plea against demolition of tribals' huts in Chattishgarh forests

The Supreme Court Tuesday agreed to hear on April 23 a plea seeking interim stay on alleged demolition of tribal homes in the forests of certain districts of Chhattisgarh.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was informed by lawyer M L Sharma that despite the apex court's order staying the eviction of illegal forest dwellers, houses of tribals are being demolished at Kalmipara in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh.

"It (plea) will come on April 23," said the bench, also comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna.

The plea said the top court has stayed its own order of February 13 by which it had directed 21 states to evict 11.8 lakh illegal forest dwellers whose claims over the land have been rejected by the authorities.

It alleged that despite the order, industrialist Navin Jindal, Jindal power ltd, other companies and political persons, along with the state police, have started demolishing huts of the tribals in Raigarh and other districts.

"Demolition is still continued in the different area of the forest/villages. If huts were demolished, residents will be compelled to be ousted from the land belonging to forest/villages, which has already been grabbed by the industrialist and company on paper with the help of the then collector and state authorities either via sale or acquisition proceeding based on false certificates of consent," the plea said.

Due to ongoing Lok Sabha polls, the demolition has been halted at the instance of political parties and it may begin again after the elections in the state on April 23, 2019, it said.

"Thereafter demolition will be started again and huts/houses of the 'adivasi' villagers will be forcefully demolished, coupled with torture so that they will be ousted from their land automatically," the plea said.

The apex court had on Monday refused to entertain a separate PIL filed by Sharma on the issue of eviction of illegal forest dwellers. It asked him to rather file an application seeking to intervene in a pending case.

The top court, while dealing with other similar pending petition, had on February 28 stayed its February 13 order directing 21 states to evict 11.8 lakh illegal forest dwellers whose claims over the forest land have been rejected by authorities.