Injustice To Tribals Is A Dark Chapter In Indian History": Another Petition Filed In SC To Curb Eviction

The petition has been filed by Tarika Tarangini Larka, an Aadivasi woman from Chhattisgarh. She relies on her fundamental rights under Article 21, as well as Articles 238, 244, 245 and Schedule V and VI of the Constitution of India to demand protection of the rights of Adivasis to the possession and ownership of their land.

The petition asserts, "The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a dark chapter in our country's history. The tribal were slaughtered by the invaders, powerful political leaders, Industrialist in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on them for centuries.

They were deprived of their lands, and pushed into forests and hills where they eke out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease, etc. And now efforts are being made by some people to deprive them even of their forest and hill land where they are living, and the forest produce on which they survive."

It then poses the following questions for the court to decide:

1. Whether all indigenous people belonging to forest/tribal areas are Aadivasi or not within Schedule V and VI of the Constitution of India?
2. Whether Aadivasis can be evicted contrary to their Constitutional rightsj protected under Schedule V and VI?
3. Whether grabbing and transfer of the Aadivasi land is allowed under any law?
4. Whether Aadivasis/ tribals are not entitled to get costs/value of the mined mineral belonging to their land?
5. Whether Aadivasis are not entitled to get back their land after being mined in repaired manner?

The petitioner goes on to demand the following reliefs:

• Declaration of indigenous residents of forests/villages in tribal/ forest and schedule areas as Aadivasi within Schedule V and VI of the Constitution of India.
• Direction to the authorities to protect and not to evict any such Aadivasi.
• Forbid the authorities from transferring possession of any forest land belonging to a tribal/forest area to anyone other than an Aadivasi/Tribal belonging to that Tribal area.
• Direction to the authorities to restore all land that has been acquired by the State for mining and other purposes after the mining work is over, to the Aadivasis/Tribals in India.
• Directing provision of cost/value of the minerals extracted to Aadivasis/Tribals from the land which originally belonged to them.
• Setting up of an SIT consisting of retired Supreme Court judges to probe cases of land grabbing from the Aadivasis.
• Direction to the CBI to register an FIR under Section 3 and 4 of the SC/ST Act to investigate into such cases and file a report before the court for further action.
• Payment of costs to the petitioner.

The petition has been filed in wake of the Supreme Court's February 13 order directing 21 States to evict 11.8 lakh illegal forest dwellers whose claims over the forest land have been rejected by the authorities.

This order was, however, stayed on Thursday, with a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra directing the Chief Secretaries of States to disclose the modalities of the procedure of adjudication of these claims on forestland.