Forest dept fails to act as encroachment cases mount

Cornered by 'development-oriented' governments, the Forest Department has failed to act on its own FIRs with thousands of cases involving forest encroachment, wildlife poaching and other violations langusihing for more than 20 years.

Information obtained under RTI shows that officials in 12 of the 29 ranges in Shivamogga circle have booked 2,208 FIRs since October 1980, when the government issued direction to evict encroachment in forest land. However, charge sheets have been filed in only 130 of these cases.

According to official data, 1.58 lakh acres of forests in eight districts of Western Ghats are encroached. Shivamogga tops the list with 81,502 acres.
In a complaint to the Central Empowered Committee appointed by the Supreme Court, activist Girish Achar has alleged that complacency and corruption were the major reasons for the lack of action by forest officers.

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"Range forest officers (RFOs) collude with encroachers. Hence RFOs don't file charge sheets. A proper enqiury has to be conducted against RFOs," he said, adding that bribe was collected in the name of senior officials.

Girish told DH that pending cases have given way to legalisation of encroachment. "This can be seen in the number of applications for land title under Forest Rights Act. These have gone up to a whopping 90,000. The forest department is sitting on a ticking bomb," he added.

An official at the district level said the forest department has misplaced its priorities. "Some RFOs deliberately make lower rung officers file FIRs so that courts dismissed the cases. We have become just another department worrying about the expenditure targets," he said.

Last week, the 3rd Addition Civil Judge and JMFC, Bhadravati issued notice to the Range Forest Officer seeking explanation for the procedural lapse of allowing a DyRFO to register an FIR.

A senor official didn't dismiss bribery but said political pressure and lack of competence were major reasons for lapses. "Seniors in the administration have never taken note of pending FIRs while assessing the performance. This attitude, combined with lack of training for frontline officers in enforcement has become a problem. Besides, some range officers are made to go slow or not act due to pressure from MLAs," he said.

Through an amendment to the Karnataka Forest Act in October 2000, the government gave powers identical to the station house officer to RFOs. Through this, the RFO could file an FIR for violation of several sections of the Forest Act. However, the department has no system to track the progress of cases.