New Delhi: A right never lawfully claimed, legally cannot be said to have been taken away, the Chhattisgarh High Court observed earlier this month, as it dismissed a decade-old petition filed by Ghatbarra villagers against coal mining in the Hasdeo forest region.
Holding that the villagers’ Community Forest Rights (CFR) were never legally claimed or, even, recognised under the procedures prescribed in the Forest Rights Act, the HC upheld a 2016 CFR revocation order. Effectively, its order sustained mining clearances for the Parsa East and Kete Basen (PEKB) coal block, now owned by the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (RRVUNL).
Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey made this observation while hearing a petition filed by the Hasdeo Arand Bachao Sangharsh Samiti and several villagers challenging a 2016 order of its District-Level Committee (DLC) that revoked Ghatbarra’s CFR.
CFR was initially recorded as granted in 2013 under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, also called the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
The FRA recognises and protects the rights of forest-dwelling communities over land and resources they have traditionally managed, and empowers Gram Sabhas to initiate and verify claims before the diversion of forest land for non-forest use.
The Hasdeo Arand forests in northern Chhattisgarh are, area-wise, among India’s largest contiguous forest tracts and are inhabited by several Adivasi communities. Spanning around 1,70,000 hectares, the forests are home to animals like the sloth bear, elephant, and rare plant species, including smilax and epiphytic orchids.
The area is divided into 23 coal blocks, six of which are approved for mining. According to government documents, the contracts for four approved mining blocks are with Adani Enterprises.
In 2006–07, the Coal Ministry allocated the PEKB coal block to the RRVUNL to fuel Rajasthan’s power plants. Though the villagers, at the time, opposed the mining project, claiming that the FRA protected their traditional rights over the forest, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Chhattisgarh government granted forest diversion clearances in 2012, followed by mining approvals.
In 2013, the DLC passed an order recognising Ghatbarra’s CFR, after the diversion of the PEKB block for mining use the previous year.
However, later in January 2016, the DLC revoked the CFR recognition, arguing that its issue was a mistake and had been interrupting mining work. It also said no proper Gram Sabha resolution had ever claimed CFRs.
The revocation prompted the villagers to file a writ petition before the High Court.
Rights ‘not claimed or vetted’
The villagers’ claim relied on the concept of CFR, which grants Gram Sabhas the legal authority to manage, conserve, and use forest resources collectively.
Under Section 3(1)(i) of the FRA, communities have the right “to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage any community forest resource which they have been traditionally protecting and conserving for sustainable use”.
However, these rights are not automatic and must be formally claimed and verified through a three-tier process provided under the FRA. Claims are firstly vetted by the Gram Sabha, then by a Sub-Divisional Level Committee, and finally by the District-Level Committee.
The petitioners argued that once the DLC recognised their rights in 2013, it had no power to cancel them. The villagers had been residing for decades and that the mining approvals were invalid. They also claimed that the 2016 CFR revocation violated both the FRA and the principles of natural justice, as it passed without any proper notices or hearings.
On the other hand, the state government and the RRVUNL argued that the 2013 order had been issued by mistake, as no Gram Sabha resolution had claimed community rights. They cited the Gram Sabha meeting minutes from September 2011 that documented over 250 individual forest rights claims, but no claim for community forest rights
The 2016 revocation, they argued, merely corrected a procedural error. Since there had never been a formal claim before the Gram Sabha—a mandatory step under the FRA—the original CFR grant was void.
Justice Pandey examined the records from the 2011 Gram Sabha to conclude that there had been no claim for CFR. “The resolution dated 19.9.2011 [of the Gram Sabha] shows that no claim was made with regard to community forest rights.”
The court also observed that, as the 2013 CFR order came after the forest land diversion in 2012, it was ‘void ab initio’ or invalid from the beginning and could not override the mining permissions already granted.
So, the court concluded that there was no lawful right to revoke—only a mistaken grant to correct.
‘No locus standi’
The state also questioned the petitioners’ locus standi, noting that the original Forest Rights Committee from Ghatbarra had withdrawn from the case, and the activists’ group pursuing the litigation lacked statutory authority under the FRA.
Another key issue was the intersection of the FRA with the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, enacted after a Supreme Court order cancelled earlier coal block allocations. This 2015 law governs the reallocation of coal mines through auctions or government allotments.
Section 29 of the 2015 Act states that it “shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained in any other law.”
The court held that the 2015 coal law had an overriding effect since it was a “special legislation”—specific and targeted. Since the PEKB block was reallocated under the 2015 Act to the RRVUNL only the year after, the mining permissions derived take legal precedence over any unfinalised or procedurally invalid forest rights claims.
The court also noted that the petitioners had not submitted any evidence of maps, forest usage records, or proof of traditional sacred or communal use sites in the area—as required under Rule 13 of the Forest Rights Rules. Also known as the FRA Rules 2008, it explicitly outlines the types of evidence that may determine both individual and community rights.
“In the entire petition, the petitioners have not pleaded with regard to evidence led before the Gram Sabha or the Sub-Divisional Level Committee or District Level Committee,” the court observed. “There is no reference to any kind of evidence, either in the facts or the grounds of the writ petition.”
Further, the court criticised the petitioners for suppressing material facts, including the existence of a now-dismissed petition or writ.
On the question of the ‘locus standi’ of the petitioners, the court found that since the Forest Rights Committee of Ghatbarra had withdrawn from the proceedings, the activist group and remaining individual petitioners had no authority to represent the village.
It held that the petitioners lacked legal standing as they were neither authorised by the Gram Sabha nor had proven residence in the affected village.
Akshat Jain is a final-year student at the National Law University, Delhi and is a contributor with ThePrint
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)