Ishwar Chandra Gupta vs . State of U .P .andOrs .

MANU/UP/1069/2011

Appellate Authority upheld order of Deputy Director whereby Petitioner was evicted from forest land.Hence, this Writ Petition. Whether, Petitioners was rightly evicted from forest land for their non-forest activities. Held, there was no inconsistency between provisions of Act, 1927 and Act, 2006 so far as Act, 2006 was enacted only with view to protect forest rights. Further, documents proved that Petitioners could not be termed as traditional forest dwellers and as such no benefit of Act, 2006 accrued to them. Moreover, in absence of any lease granted to Petitioners, no right was formed upon them either to live or run business in forest area and they were purely unauthorized occupants over land in question, which was reserve forest land. However, once it was proved that Petitioner was not covered under Act, 2006, they could not hit provisions of Section 61-B of the Act, 1927 even being repugnant to provisions of the Act, 2006. Since, Petitioner was not able to produce any document of title before Civil Court nor before High Court. Thus, Petitioner had no right to continue their possession over forest land with their non-forest activities like doing business. Writ Petition was dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi”Party shall not have possession over property if they don’t have legal title for that.”