Refuting farmers’ allegations on land recovery measures, Forest Department officials have made it clear that they initiated legal actions against some of the upland farmers on the basis of a joint land survey report and the Forest Act.
They said only farmers who possessed forestland in eight villages were facing difficulties in the recovery measures. It would be continued as such and the department served notices on suspected encroachers under section 3 (1) of the Kerala Private Forests (Vesting and Assignment) Act, they said.
Meanwhile, Karshaka Raksha Samiti, a collective of settler farmers, alleged that the Forest Department was trying to evacuate around 5,000 poor farmers by portraying them as encroachers of forestland. Samiti leaders held the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) responsible for the ‘hostile actions’ that put farmers in a tight spot in eight villages of the district.
Leaders of the Samiti, who recently took out a district-wide rally on the issue, said the DFO served notices on several farmers asking them to vacate the land immediately citing some of the earlier verdicts of the Kerala High Court on the possession of forestland. They said the officer served notices on farmers ignoring directives from the State government on the issue.
O.D. Thomas, chairman of the Samiti, said the DFO was going ahead with the recovery actions without consulting his senior functionaries and the State government. The officers, who initiate action against farmers, were unaware of the age and poor health condition of many of the landowners in the area and the impact of sending around 5,000 persons to the street for a baseless legal battle, he alleged.
In Koorachundu and Kanthalad villages alone, the Forest Department served notices on 20 farmers whose land was found as forest property in a previous inspection. Though farmers claimed that they purchased the land before 1977, the Forest Department stuck to its stand that the encroachment was noticed during a joint inspection in 1992.
Samiti leaders said the stance of the Forest Department denying the validity of revenue documents possessed by farmers was suspicious. They also made it clear that the landholders in the area would never accept the survey plan independently prepared by the Forest Department to ‘capture the farmland and categorise it as forest property’.
