New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh high court has dismissed a petition challenging the cancellation of community forest rights granted to villagers of Ghatbarra in the Hasdeo Arand forest area in the state, The Hindu reported.

A single bench of Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey gave the order on October 8, pertaining to a land where an Adani Enterprises-owned entity is operating on the Parsa East and Kete Basen coal mines

In a first, the high court order addressed the question of whether forest rights granted to people under the 2006 Forest Rights Act (FRA) can be revoked or cancelled, given that the law does not explicitly provide for any such measure.

According to a Scroll report, he said that a 2013 order, passed by a district-level committee under the Forest Rights Act, “granting” three community forest rights titles to the villagers of Ghatbarra was a “mistake”, since the land had already been diverted for mining in 2012.

It was “rectified” through the cancellation, he said, concluding that this made the order granting the rights “void ab initio”, or legally invalid from the beginning.

The petition was initially filed by the Forest Rights Committee of Ghatbarra village, a body set up under the Forest Rights Act. Civil society organisation Hasdeo Arand Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, which has been fighting for forest rights in the area, also subsequently joined the petition, along with several individuals who said they were residents of the village.

The high court said that the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited (RVUNL) – a Rajasthan government-owned utility which owns the coal block – had already completed Phase I of mining in the last 10 years or so, and had also been given clearance for beginning Phase II of mining in 2022.

“Three years have passed since then, and claims of the residents of village Ghatbarra with regard to individual or community forest rights, if any, can be compensated in terms of money,” the court ruled, as per The Hindu report.

The Forest Rights Act, 2006, gives tribal and forest-dwelling communities across India legal rights over the forests and lands they have lived in and used for generations.

The Wire has earlier reported how the villages in Hasdeo forest are being erased in the ongoing decimation of Hasdeo’s forests, cleared to make way for coal mining. 

The people of Kete village, for instance, who were displaced nearly a decade ago, are now scattered with many relocated to Basan, a government-designated rehabilitation site. 

Just just in Hasdeo but across the country, the FRA has struggled to deliver on its promises, with a significant increase in claims processed under the law since the Modi government came to power in 2014.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.