Bharatiya Suraaj Dal has come up with serious charges on the State Government of forest land acquisition through ‘illegally managed’ documents in Badkagaon, Hazaribagh.
The political outfit headed by a former IPS officer has filed a Public Interest litigation (PIl) in Jharkhand High Court on Thursday demanding some 48 Square Kilometers of forest land acquired by Government to be taken back from it. The PIl is expected to come before bench for hearing on Friday next week.
Bhartiya Suraj Dal president PK Siddharth made grave accusations on Government saying that the entire drama being played since some months in Barkagaon against NTPC was knowingly projected towards protests against agricultural land acquisitions.
However, there happened acquisition of forest lands also, which remained more questionable keeping in mind the irregularities made and existing Forest Protection Act laws were bypassed to acquire the lands.
The PIl claims that the 2,500 acres of forest land acquired for coal mining has been done in violation of Forest Rights Act, which makes it mandatory to seek approval of the Gram Sabha.
It also suggests that the entire forest land has been acquired through manipulation of records with active connivance of the then District Magistrate and the SDO and the CO along with forest officials, without consent of the Gram Sabha. The PIl has urged the court to set up a judicial enquiry into the matter to identify and punish guilty officials.
“It is for the first time that evidence has been gathered and produced to show that a huge chunk of the forest land has been ‘acquired' illegally. It has been alleged by various quarters that all this has been done to promote the interests of the private company to which the work of coal mining has been outsourced by the NTPC. It is said that the company has access to the highest echelons in the ruling party and the Government,” accused Siddharth.
He added that the local officers first said that the forest to be acquired was the home of only for species of animals; hence acquisition was not any problem. However, in a reply to an RTI, the same officials claimed that the forest was a natural habitat of more than 200 species of animals.
Saryu Prasad of Ekta Parishad, second petitioner in PIl along with Bhartiya Suraj Dal, said that the entire process of land acquisition, both agricultural and forest, was illegal, and it would result in displacement of 60,000 people in addition to seriously harming the environment due to cutting of millions of forest trees in about 46 sq km forest area.
“The acquisition of non-forest land has also become unlawful since now the land Acquisition Act, 2013 has come in force, section 24 (2) of which makes the entire land acquisition process infructuous under the old law if the land has not been taken possession of by the government till date. In the instant case most of the private land has not been physically taken into possession by the Government, and the land-owning farmers have refused to accepted compensation till date,” claimed Prasad.