Environment Ministry Reviews Indian Forests Act, Proposes to Decriminalise Certain Violations

Environment Ministry Reviews Indian Forests Act, Proposes to Decriminalise Certain Violations

Subject: Governance

Context:  with its focus on speeding up resolution of forest-related violations, the government has now proposed to amend the Indian Forests Act, 1927

Indian Forest Act, 1927

• In order to make the Forest Act, 1878 more effective and more comprehensive, a new Forest Act was passed in 1927 which repealed all the previous laws and legislations
• The Section 2 of Indian Forest Act, 1927 defines certain terms like cattle, forest officer, forest offenses and forest produce.
• Forest produce includes timber, charcoal, wood-oil, bark, resin, trees and leaves, flowers and fruits, plants, cocoon, honey, wax, rocks and minerals, water bodies such as rivers, ponds and lakes and wild animals including their skins, tusks, bones and horns
• Indian Forest Act defines reserved, village and protected forests respectively and certain acts which are prohibited and restricted inside these forests and thus, are punishable
• Reserved Forests: The Chapter II of the Indian Forest Act enables the State government to exercise the power to issue a notification under Section 4 to declare any forest or a piece of land a reserved forest in the manner provided in the Act
• Village Forests: The Chapter III of the Indian Forest Act defines Village Forests. It enables the State Government to assign rights to any village-community over the land that may have been constituted as reserved forest for the use of that community
• Protected Forests: The Chapter IV of the Indian Forest Act defines Protected Forests. It is any forest-land or waste-land which is not included in a reserved forest but happens to be the property of the Government, or such a land over which the government has proprietary rights is declared to be so by a notification by a State Government under the provisions of the Section 29 of this Act

Proposed amendments in the Indian Forest Act, 1927

• The amendments seek to decriminalise offences like kindling, keeping or carrying fire in a reserved forest without permission, trespassing or pasturing cattle or causing any damage by negligence in felling any tree in a reserved forest.
• They also seek to decriminalise acts like leaving a burning fire kindled by the person in the vicinity of any tree reserved under Section 30, or felling any tress or dragging timber to damage any reserved tree, or permitting cattle to damage such tree.
• The amendments are aimed at decriminalising “relatively minor violations” of law which could help in expeditious resolution of complaints, reduce compliance burden on citizens, rationalise penalties, and subsequently prevent harassment of citizens