The Court held that rights for land assignments for Scheduled Tribes depend on compliance with statutory regulations.

JUDGMENT :

S.M.SUBRAMANIAM, J.

1. Under assail is the common writ order dated 06.11.2024 in W.P.Nos.30239, 30218, 30211, 30368, 30370 and 30143 of 2024.

2. State preferred the present intra-Court appeal mainly on the ground that subject lands have been classified as forest lands. Therefore, directions issued by the writ Court to grant patta to the encroachers/respondents herein is in violation of provisions of the Forest Act and Rules framed thereunder.

3. Per contra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondents would submit that respondents are Scheduled Tribes and they are in possession of cultivating lands in Kalvarayan Hills for several decades. Thus, they are entitled for patta. The writ Court considered the issues and directed appellants herein to grant patta to the respondents. Thus, the present Writ Appeal is to be rejected.

4. The learned Additional Advocate General appearing on behalf of the appellants is unable to produce any document to establish that subject location has been declared as private forest and consequential notifications have been issued under the Act. However, facts can be captured from the proceedings of the District Collector, Villupuram dated 07.03.1999, which is a proposal sent to the Secretary to Government through the Special Commissioner and Commissioner of Land Administration. In the said proposal the Collector has stated as follows:-

5) On resumption of the Hills area from Jagidars the Survey and Settlement work was taken up. The folk (colloquial) word being used for cultivating lands is different from place to place. For instance, in plain areas ryots denote their cultivating land as Kalani (), Nilam (), Vayal () and Kollai (). The tribals used the folk as 'Kadu' (). The settlement officials during the settlement, operation, misonstrued the meaning of 'Kadu' and misclassified the lands in the village records.

6) According to the Settlement records, the Kalrayan Hills are classified as follows:

7) The Government have appointed Forest Settlement Officer during the year 1983 to classify Kadu Poramboke and proclaimed into Reserve Forest and other cultivable area separately. The Forest Settlement Officer has divided the Kalrayan Hills (Comprising of 50 Revenue Villages) into 41 forest blocks for his administrative convenience. It the meantime, the Tribals of Karayan Hills moved the High Court, Chennai for the grant of land assignment which are encroached and enjoyed by them for pretty a long time and filed a Writ Petition in W.P.No.1210/85 and the High Court, of Judicature at Chennai in their order dated 24.2.94 directed that the tribals should apply for land assignment to the Collector within a period of 3 months from the date of receipt of Judgement and inturn the Government should scrutinise all such applications and settle the issue within a period of six months. Since, no applications were received from the tribals, a report to that effect was sent to Government on 29.12.1994. Further, the post of Forest Settlement Officer was disbanded with effect from 31.5.1993 with the result the residuary work were given up and the 'Kadu Poramboke' were not converted into Reserve Forest till now.

8) In the meantime, the High Level Committee which was constituted by the Government recommended that Land assignment be issued at the rate of 1.00.0 Hectare per family. Accordingly, the enumeration was done by the then three Special Tahsildars, four years back and identif