The Hindu : National : Brinda Karat’s plea to Manmohan

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Wednesday, Nov 07, 2007
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Brinda Karat’s plea to Manmohan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat has sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention to ensure that the will of Parliament is not subverted by delaying the notification of the Rules of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

Referring to the government’s stance that the Rules would be notified after the Ministry of Environment and Forests identifies “the critical wildlife habitat,” Ms. Karat said the linkage did not have any logic. While pointing out that the Ministry had written to State governments to identify such habitats as mandated under the Section 2(b) of the Act, she said this was clearly illegal as “even though the Rules have not been identified, the Ministry has started implementing one section of the Act.”

As there are nearly 600 protected areas in the country, the exercise would take at least a year if the processes mandated by the Act were followed. But with the Ministry being under pressure to hasten the process, her fear was that the identification process itself will not be in conformity with the Act and, “therefore will be illegal on this core also.”

Stating that Section 4.1 of the Act recognised and vested forest rights in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers on forest land, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member said the process of recognition and vesting of rights, including issue of pattas to forest dwellers, was not dependent on identification of critical wildlife habitats.

Drawing the Prime Minister’s attention to the fact that some States had decided to implement the Act and distribute pattas to tribals, Ms. Karat said it would be “unfortunate if the very government which brought the Act in the first place should be seen to be weakening on the issue of tribal rights.”

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