Encroachment on Forest Land: Who Acts and How

Encroachment on forest land is primarily the forest department's job to remove. The Divisional Forest Officer and range staff act under the Indian Forest Act 1927 or the state's forest Act, which make clearing, cultivating or building in reserved forests an offence and provide for eviction. Revenue officials step in where the land sits in revenue records, the police assist and register trespass cases, and local bodies deal with unauthorised buildings. Because putting forest land to non-forest use without central approval also breaches the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, the NGT can direct removal and restoration when the authorities fail to act.

This guide is for villagers, residents and groups watching farmhouses, sheds, crops, roads or resorts creep into a forest, and for people who have received an eviction notice and want to know where they stand. It explains who has the power to act, how to make them act, where the forest rights law changes the picture, and when to go to the NGT or the High Court. Felling that accompanies encroachment is covered on our page on illegal tree cutting complaints.

Whether land is forest at all is often the first argument an encroacher raises. If that is in doubt, read our guide on what deemed forest means alongside this one.

The essentials

Who is responsible for removing encroachment from forest land?

For notified forest, meaning reserved, protected and village forest, the forest department is responsible. The Divisional Forest Officer heads the division, range officers and forest guards patrol the ground, and the forest Acts give them powers to stop work, seize tools and vehicles, prosecute offenders and evict. Most state forest Acts follow the pattern of the Indian Forest Act 1927 in making clearing, breaking up land for cultivation, building and similar acts in a reserved forest an offence. The exact eviction procedure differs by state, so the state Act and rules have to be read.

Other authorities share the work. Where forest land is shown in revenue records, or the boundary between forest and revenue land is disputed, the tehsildar, SDM and Collector have to be involved, because they control the land records and the revenue eviction powers. The police register cases of criminal trespass and provide protection during demolition. Local bodies and development authorities can act against buildings put up without sanction, and should refuse sanctions on forest land in the first place.

In practice, the problem is rarely a lack of power. It is that each office points to the other. Most of what follows is about making the right office act and keeping a record that shows who failed.

Who acts depends on the kind of land

What counts as encroachment on forest land

Encroachment means occupying or using forest land without legal right. The common forms are fencing and cultivation at the forest edge, houses and farmhouses, shops and dhabas along a highway that runs through forest, godowns and sheds, banquet lawns, resorts and homestays, private roads cut through to reach a plot, and dumping of construction waste or mining overburden. Some encroachments start as a temporary hut or a cattle shed and grow year by year.

Government agencies encroach too. A department that lays a road, builds an office or dumps debris on forest land without approval under section 2 of the forest conservation law is breaking that law just as much as a private person. The difference is that a complaint against a government agency is often better pitched as a breach of the forest conservation law before the NGT than as an ordinary encroachment complaint to the same government's forest department.

Some encroachment is on a scale that changes the land itself: a hill cut for a plot, a stream filled, a patch of forest burnt and ploughed. These cases need restoration, not just removal, and the remedy should say so.

Encroacher or rights holder? The Forest Rights Act question

Not everyone living or farming on forest land is an encroacher. The Forest Rights Act 2006 recognises the rights of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers over land they occupied before a cut-off date in 2005, and community rights over forests they have traditionally used. Claims are made to the gram sabha and decided by committees at the sub-division and district level. The Act also bars eviction of eligible forest dwellers from land under their occupation until the recognition and verification process is complete.

So the first question in any eviction affecting forest dwellers is whether a claim was made, and what happened to it. A family with a pending or recognised claim should produce the claim, the acknowledgment and any title issued. A complainant pursuing eviction should be prepared for this question and should separate genuine forest dwellers from recent, commercial encroachments such as resorts and farmhouses, which the Forest Rights Act does not protect. Forest rights disputes themselves are decided under that Act and in the High Court, not by the NGT.

How the forest department removes an encroachment

The usual sequence is detection, report, notice, hearing, order and removal. A forest guard or range officer reports the encroachment, often with a damage or offence report. The occupant is given notice and a chance to show any right to the land. If no right is shown, an eviction order is passed under the state forest Act or rules, followed by removal with police assistance. Offences can also be compounded or prosecuted under the forest Act, and tools, machinery and vehicles used in the offence can be seized.

Departments are often slow at the last step. Eviction orders are passed and then sit on file because police force is not available, because of local pressure, or because the encroacher has gone to court. A complaint that asks only for an inquiry will get an inquiry. Ask for a copy of the offence report, the date of the eviction order, and the date fixed for removal.

When Advocate B.K. Singh is approached by villagers about encroachment in a nearby forest, the first thing he asks for is whether an offence report or eviction order already exists, because a department that has already found encroachment and then done nothing is far easier to hold to account than one that has never looked.

When forest is in revenue records and nobody acts

The hardest cases are on land that is forest in character or in old records but appears in current revenue records as something else: banjar, gair mumkin, grazing land, or even private land after a doubtful mutation. The forest division says it is revenue land. The tehsildar says it is forest. Meanwhile the encroachment grows.

The answer is usually a demand for a joint demarcation by the forest and revenue departments, with the Collector asked to coordinate. Ask for the forest boundary to be marked with pillars, for the encroached area to be measured, and for a joint report. Missing or shifted boundary pillars are themselves a sign of encroachment and should be reported. Once a joint report identifies forest land under occupation, each department's duty becomes much harder to dodge.

Where land on the state's deemed forest list has been mutated in private names, ask the Collector to examine the mutation entries. Mutation does not change forest status, but it does give encroachers paper to wave around.

How to get encroachment removed from forest land

This works for most villages and city fringes. Keep copies of everything and note dates.

When the NGT can step in

The NGT can hear encroachment cases where a substantial environmental question arises under a Schedule I Act. The forest conservation law is one, and using forest land for a non-forest purpose without central approval is a breach of it. The tribunal can direct demarcation, removal of encroachments, restoration of the land and, applying the polluter pays principle, payment of environmental compensation. It usually starts by asking the forest department and the district administration, sometimes through a joint committee, to report on the facts.

The NGT is not the place to decide title or to try forest offences. The Indian Forest Act is not in Schedule I, so prosecution for forest offences stays with the forest department and the criminal courts. And the six-month time limit under section 14 can be raised against old encroachments. Encroachment that is still growing, or a fresh failure by the authorities to act on a complaint, gives a clearer starting point; our guide on continuing cause of action before the NGT explains how the tribunal looks at this.

Where the core complaint is that officials have simply refused to act, our guide on NGT cases against government inaction covers how to frame it.

An NGT order for removal is only as good as its follow-up. If the deadline passes and the structures are still standing, an execution application brings the matter back before the tribunal, and non-compliance with its orders is itself punishable under section 26 of the NGT Act.

The High Court and the criminal route

A writ petition in the High Court asks the court to direct the forest and revenue authorities to perform their legal duty. It is a natural route where an eviction order has been passed but not carried out, where the dispute is mainly about land records or demarcation, or where forest rights questions are mixed in. High Courts often set a timetable and ask for compliance reports. Our page on environmental writ petitions in the High Court covers this.

The criminal route runs alongside. Forest officers can register forest offences and prosecute, and the police can register criminal trespass and related cases. Private complainants usually get further by pressing the forest department to file its own case than by trying to prosecute privately, since the forest Act gives forest officers the main role.

Documents that help in an encroachment case

If you have been accused of encroaching on forest land

Do not ignore the notice. Reply in writing within the time given, and attach every document you have: title deeds, old revenue records, any lease or patta from the government, proof of how long you have been there, and any claim under the Forest Rights Act with its acknowledgment. If the dispute is about where the forest boundary lies, ask for a joint demarcation by the forest and revenue departments before any action is taken.

Be realistic about what papers can do. A patta or lease of forest land granted by the state after 1980 without central approval may itself be open to question, because the state cannot assign forest land for non-forest use without that approval. Central guidelines have at times allowed regularisation of certain old encroachments that predate 1980, with central approval, but that route is narrow and should not be assumed. Genuine forest dwellers with eligible claims are in a very different position from someone who bought a plot cheaply from a broker. Advocate B.K. Singh's usual advice to people in this position is to establish the facts of the boundary and the history of their occupation first, before arguing anything else.

Mistakes that let encroachments stay

• Complaining orally. A word with the forest guard leaves no record. Always complain in writing with a date and location.
• Complaining to everyone at once without a focus. Fifteen copies to fifteen offices produce fifteen forwards. Address the DFO, copy the SDM and Collector, and follow up.
• Ignoring the boundary question. Without demarcation, occupants argue the land is outside the forest and the case drifts.
• Mixing genuine forest dwellers with commercial encroachers. Treating them alike weakens the case against resorts and farmhouses and invites a forest rights challenge.
• Waiting until construction is complete. The longer a structure stands, the more arguments about delay and the more resistance to removal.

Before you complain about forest encroachment

Where to go next

If the encroachment came with tree felling by a developer, read our guide on a builder cutting trees without permission. If the forest has been handed to a project through an approval, see how to challenge forest land diversion. Similar problems on lakes and ponds are covered on our page on lake, pond and wetland encroachment, and for help with forest matters generally, see our forest and wildlife law page.