Petition pleads for regularizing at least 10 out of 200 acres of forest land!

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed an appeal by two persons from Chikkamagaluru district seeking regularization of unauthorized occupancy of 200 acres of forest land they claimed to be cultivating.

In the end their counsel pleaded that at least 10 acres out of it be given to them.

A division bench of the HC upheld the single-judge order and said that the land in question has been entrusted to the Forest Department in 1998-99 and the Department has raised a ‘Nedutopu’ on it and there was no question of regularizing it to private parties.

S Shivakumar and D Manjunath, both from Bukkambudhi village, Ajjampura taluk, filed an appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court challenging the singlejudge’s order on August 10, 2023 which had rejected their claim for regularisation of unauthorised occupancy of land.

Their counsel claimed before the bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit that under Section 94D of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act and the provisions of the Karnataka Land Revenue rules, the land should have been regularized in their names.

The counsel further contended that “even if 200 acres of land is given to the Forest Department, still there is about 10 acres of land in which his clients have been doing cultivation and therefore at least to that extent direction for treating their application for regularisation ought to have been issued.”

The Division Bench, however, refused to heed to their plea and said that it was in broad agreement with the reasoning of the single judge who had made the finding that “the entire land in question has been entrusted to the Forest Department way back in 1998-99 and even the entries have been mutated in the Land Registers.

"To the same effect, there is an order of the Deputy Commissioner made on 03.11.1998, designating the land in question Nedutopu. The Forest Department has raised inter alia Acatia and Nilgiri trees.”

Citing the single-judge order, the division bench noted that the land these two petitioners were claiming belonged to the Forest Department. “A perusal of Google images at Annexure- ‘R2’ would also indicate the identification of land by the Forest Department along with the details of latitude and longitude.

"The mahazar drawn on 20.05.2021 clearly records that the land in which the petitioners were attempting to trespass and carry out unauthorised cultivation is an extent of 200 acres that has been entrusted to the Forest Department by the Deputy Commissioner,” it said.

Once land is transferred to the Forest Department, it cannot be granted, the HC reiterated.

“Once the Mahazar recites regarding the location of land claimed by petitioners as falling within an extent of 200 acres transferred by the Deputy Commissioner to the Forest Department as pointed out by learned High Court Government Pleader, in terms of Rule 108-I of the Karnataka Land Revenue Rules, 1966, such land cannot be granted,” it said. WA 1093/2023