No link between eviction by forest department and PIL: Hiremath

Samaja Parivarthana Samsthe Founder S R Hiremath has clarified that there is no connection between the land eviction process taken up by the forest department in Chikmagalur and the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by his organisation in the High Court.

Addressing mediapersons at Pravasi Mandir on Thursday, he said that he had a discussion with the villagers of Salur in Honnekoodige village, in the backdrop of allegation made by some of the politicians that he was responsible for the eviction of land belonging to Damodar Achar and Govind Achar. 

“The issue of land encroachment in the taluk was brought to light when I visited here along with the forest officials, based on a complaint by the locals alleging one Manu in Bilal Koppa in Salur village of encroaching 15 to 20 acre land. The land was evicted as a civil and criminal case was registered against the encroacher based on the Forest Act,” he said.

He flayed at the politicians for creating negative propaganda against him, by portraying him as responsible for the land eviction in Honnekoodige village. A 1000 page petition was filed in the Supreme Court based on a report on encroachment prepared by Balasubramanya and A T Ramaswamy. As the issue was related to Karnataka, the SC directed to file the petition in the High Court and as per the SC direction, we filed the PIL in HC in January 2013, the activist clarified.

Speaking briefly about the petition, Hiremath said that the petition expresses concern over people who have encroached less than 10 acre land for livelihood. Our demand is to take action against those who have encroached large holdings out of greed. Politicians who have encroached large quantity of government land are trying to save their encroachment, by portraying themselves as saviours of poor encroachers, he ridiculed.Hiremath assured that he would fight for poor encroachers if the government makes any attempt to evict them. The government has to provide them alternate arrangements, in case of eviction. 

Poor section of the society have been met with injustice due to ineffective implementation of the Land Reforms Act in the State. Jana Sangrama Parishat has been formed to fight against corruption and land encroachers. The Central government which gives a financial aid of Rs five lakh crore to industries every year, has to stop the aid and provide it to farmers and daily wage labourers, he demanded.

He also stressed on effective implementation of Forest Rights Act and demanded the elected representatives to amend laws for the protection of small encroachers. No notices have been served so far to large encroachers, the activist alleged.