Kishor Rithe

Courts to the rescue of Pench,June 2002

VOL. XXII. NO. 3. June 2002,Page 85

Courts to the rescue of Pench

by Kishor Rithe

The courts have come to the rescue of the tigers of Pench. Barely a few weeks after a tiger entered the irrigation department colony (see picture) near the Totladoh dam, the Nagpur bench of the Mumbai High Court (Justice J.N. Patel and Justice P.S. Brahme) ordered that all illegal encroachments in the Pench National Park be removed.

Notices served by the forest department asking the irrigation department and the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board (MPEB) to vacate and remove illegal structures constructed on the forest land leased to them had been repeatedly ignored. Further, the encroachments grew, with even small restaurants  springing up. Emboldened, the encroachers even moved the court against the eviction notices served by the forest department. The court had protected them by an ad interim order, asking the respondents to file affidavits in reply. On examining the matter, the court decided that the petitioners had no right to remain in the reserve forest area.

The court also ruled that the encroachers were not eligible for resettlement as per the Government Resolution dated July 17, 2001 and the Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act, 1999, since Totladoh was not an original village and the said individuals were labourers from the time of construction of the hydel project. The involvement of many of the encroachers in illegal fishing, poaching and other activities harmful to wildlife also incurred the censure of the court. I, myself, witnessed the recovery of chital skulls from one of the fishermen’s camps in 1999.

The court also directed the MPEB, Maharashtra State Electricity Board and the irrigation department to remove their constructions from the reserve forest area and stated that the personnel required for maintenance should be placed outside the forest, entering with permission when required.

After this judgement of April 22, 2002, the wildlife department immediately served notices to the irrigation department, MPEB and other encroachers to vacate their 267 illegal houses and 71 constructions of the irrigation colony, which were occupied by encroachers. On April 23, the staff of the Pench Tiger Reserve made an appeal to the encroachers promising them assistance to shift their belongings to either the Vadamba, Khursapar, Deolapar, Thuyapani, Tuyapar, Paoni, Ramtek or Mansar villages. The revenue department had allotted plots at Vadamba, 30 km. away from Totladoh for 267 landless families  though the court had not given any directions to this effect and this was outside the purview of the Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act, 1999.

The appeals of the Pench staff were ignored and on April 24, with the protection of the police, eviction operations were started, continuing till the 28^th. Seeing that the department was serious this time, the encroachers (338 families) registered and came forward to transport their belongings, with the assistance of the police and forest department. Members of the Satpuda Foundation and the local Honorary Wildlife Warden were also present to assist in the operations.

A total of 267 illegal houses and 71 temporary structures in the irrigation colony were vacated and demolished, with the help of three bulldozers and 42 trucks.

The forest department must be commended for acting so swiftly on the court’s orders, with Chief Wildlife Warden Mr. B. Majumdar, Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Nagpur Mr. Shree Bhagwan
and Deputy Conservator of Forests, Pench Mr. N.D. Chaudhari monitoring the entire operation personally. The next step is to vacate and demolish all the remaining illegal structures and then begin the vital task of habitat restoration by removing the debris, so that Pench’s tigers can soon stalk chital through an area once covered by human dwellings.

Caption

1. The illegal structures demolished included a restaurant (top) established to cater to the tourists visiting the reservoir from Nagpur. Just a few weeks before the court order, a tiger wandered into the settlement and remained there for hours, proving that the colony was interfering with the park’s wildlife