Date: 22-Oct-2014
To
The Principal Secretary
Revenue Department
Government of Karnataka
Bangalore
Copy to
Deputy Commissioner
Bangalore Urban District
Kandhaya Bhavana
Kempegowda Road
Bangalore 560 009
Additional Chief Secretary
Department of Forest, Environment And Ecology
Room 708, Gate 2, M.S.Building
Dr.Ambedkar Veedhi
Bangalore 560 001
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Head of Forest Force
Aranya Bhavana
18thCross, Malleshwaram
Bangalore 560 003
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden
Aranya Bhavana
18thCross, Malleshwaram
Bangalore 560 003
Principal Secretary
Department of Law
Government of Karnataka
Vidhana Soudha
Bangalore
Subject: Illegal conveyance and anticipated development over an area adjoining a forest land despite objection by the Forest Department: 2 acres of land adjoining the forest land in Survey No. 22 of Mailasandra Village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South Taluk, Bangalore is sought to be illegally conveyed by the Revenue Department for the purpose of erecting a memorial in the name of Late Dr.Vishnuvardhan, the iconic Kannada film star.
Dear Sir
1. I write here primarily in the interest of the public that largely comprises of the residents of Mailasandra Village at Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South Taluk, Bangalore and these residents and members of the public may be considered herein to be represented by:
(1) Sri Shivaraj.N, S/o Nagaraju, Aged about 25 years and residing at No.325, Near Hanuman Temple, Mailasandra, R V College Post, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South, Bangalore-560 059 and
(2) Sri Deepak C.N, S/o C.M Nagaraju, Aged about 30 years and residing at No. F-73, 13th Cross, Ist Phase, BEL Layout, Bharath Nagar Bangalore 560 091.
Late Dr. Vishnuvardhan is and will always be remembered as an iconic actor of the Kannada film industry. The rest of this communication is not about the memory of the said great actor.
2. Rather, this communication is about the lawlessness evidenced in the actions of the officers of the Revenue Department and of the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District in the matter of conveying a land adjoining a forest land for a non-forest purpose in complete contravention of the relevant regulations.
3. On 4-Mar-2014, the Revenue Department acting through its Principal Secretary had issued a notification (RD 29 LJB 2014 Bangalore) to convey an extent of 2 acres of land in Sy No. 22 of Mailasandra Village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South Taluk, Bangalore for the purpose of establishment of a memorial in the name of late Dr. Vishnuvardhan, the iconic Kannada actor. A copy of the said notification together with the underlying order is produced herewith as Annexure A.
4. The problem with the aforesaid notification?
Too many.
5. To begin with, this 2 acres of land adjoining a forest land. - that is, Sy.No.22 of Mailasandra village is a land that measures around 109.05 acres. Of this, 79.20 acres is a forest land and it is not in dispute that these 2 acres of land is shown in the records as falling outside the 79.20 acres of forest land. Unfortunately, the Revenue Department appears to have thought that merely because this 2 acres of land falls outside the forest land, it is free to convey the said land for a non-forest purpose. Nevertheless, the Forest Department has been repeatedly bringing to the notice of the Revenue Department through several letters to inform it that they are thoroughly mistaken in assuming as much.
6. A forest land is of course, already protected under the laws in force. However, in order to protect any stretch of forest land, the lawmakers had felt it necessary to create a buffer or protective zone so that they could prohibit deleterious activity in that protective zone. For instance, say there is a forest land and immediately adjoining that land, the Government permits a crowd-congregating activity to come up in that adjoining land. The permitted crowd-congregating activity can generally be expected to endanger the forest growth and wealth at least at the edges and at the boundaries. If the intention of a forest law was to primarily safeguard forest wealth, it could not hope to achieve that objective if the protection would simply stop at the boundary of a forest. The nature of any forest is such that the protection immediately outside its boundary too is a matter of much concern to forest preservation. It is precisely these considerations that gave rise to Rule 41 of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969. You are invited to pay close attention to the same:
41. Grant of lands by the Deputy Commissioner:-
(1) No land containing valuable trees or other forest growth shall be granted by the Deputy Commissioner, unless the concerned Deputy Conservator of Forests gives his concurrence.
(2) No land from well wooded areas or adjacent to wooded areas in the district or protected forests or within 100 metres of reserved forests shall be granted for occupancy.
7. Now, the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 is clearly binding upon the officers of the Revenue Department as well as upon the Deputy Commissioners.
8. Let us find out about the application of Rule 41(1). It speaks about lands that are sought to be granted by the Deputy Commissioner but contain trees or other forest growth. In such event, what more is required to ensure that the grant is lawfully made? This Rule says that the concurrence of the Deputy Conservator of Forest shall be necessary for the purpose of granting such a land which already has trees or forest growth over it. So, the essential question here is, does the 2 acres of land in question contain trees or other forest growth?
9. The answer, obviously, is ‘yes’. Attached are four photographs of the site as Annexure ‘F’ and you will readily see that there has been substantial forest growth on that site. You may kindly note that the Forest Department was of the impression that this 2 acres of land too is a forest land and I have been informed that the Research Wing of the Forest Department had made several plantations at the said site and had safeguarded the same in the belief that it was a forest land. So, the said Notification dated 04-Mar-2014 is obviously in violation of Rule 41(1) of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 as no concurrence has been obtained to the same by the Deputy Conservator of Forest.
10. By the way, how do I know here that the Deputy Conservator of Forest has not already concurred to the grant in question? The various officers of the Forest Department have been repeatedly objecting through letters to the officers of the Revenue Department and the contention taken in those communications make it absolutely clear that the Forest Department is completely opposed to the grant in question though they don’t specifically cite Rule 41(1) but have instead cited Rule 41(2). Further, the two individuals named above have specifically enquired with the officers of the Forest Department and have informed me for the purpose of this communication that there has been no concurrence from the Deputy Conservator of Forest as yet to the purported grant of land. Moreover, the objections that were made by the officers of the Department of Forest would lose all meaning if any such concurrence had already been granted by the Deputy Conservator of Forest. Their objection, however, is rooted in Rule 41(2) and what really does this Rule say?
11. It reads:
(2) No land from well wooded areas or adjacent to wooded areas in the district or protected forests or within 100 metres of reserved forests shall be granted for occupancy.
(Emphasis supplied by us)
12. The first part of this rule is not happily worded and that could have led to much disagreement and confusion. However, the Forest Department is only relying upon the latter part of this rule which is that there shall be no grant howsoever in respect of land situated within 100 metres of a reserved forest. So the only enquiry that must arise in this case is whether the 2 acres of land in Mailasandra Village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South Taluk is within 100 metres of a reserved forest.
13. It is a fact that the Forest Department has been repeatedly urging that the said 2 acres of land is within 100 metres of a reserved forest. I have reviewed the materials that they have communicated to your office and I have not even the slightest shadow of doubt to inform you that the Forest Department has indeed established to the satisfaction of a reasonable person that the 2 acres of land is within 100 meters of a reserved forest. I invite your attention to the several letters that were addressed to the officers of the Department of Revenue and to the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban district repeatedly by the Forest Department and to certain letters that were exchanged between the officers of the Forest Department themselves which subsequently formed part of the communication from the Forest Department to the Revenue Department. These letters are:
Sl.No. Date of Letter From To Summary
Annexure ‘B1’ 30-Sep-2014 Deputy Conservator of Forest Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District Objection in terms of Rule 41 (2) of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969
Annexure ‘B2’ 30-May-2014 Deputy Conservator of Forest Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Objection terms of Rule 41(2)
Annexure ‘B3’ 28-Feb-2014 Deputy Conservator of Forest Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District Objection in terms of Rule 41(2)
Annexure ‘B4’ 11-Feb-2014 Assistant Conservator of Forest Deputy Conservator of Forest Objection in terms of Rule 41(2)
Annexure B5 12-Apr-2012 Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Conservator of Forest Information about the 1935 Notifications
Annexure ‘B6’ 07-Feb-2014 Range Forest Officer Deputy Conservator of Forest Spot inspection Report – that the land falls within 100 metres of the Turahalli Reserve forest
Annexure ‘B7’ 01-Jan-2014 Range Forest Officer Deputy Conservator of Forest Inspection report as in above.
14. The aforesaid letters consistently express a single and the same view that the said 2 acres of land is situated within 100 metres of a reserved forest.
15. Now, let us find out about the material that the Forest Department has in its possession to claim that the said land is situated within 100 metres of a reserved forest?
16. Let me produce a sketch that has been prepared by the Forest Department itself to show that Sy No.22 of Mailasandra village is an area comprising of 109.05 acres and of this, 79.20 acres is Forest land. Let this sketch be called as Annexure’C1’. You will see from this sketch that against the marked square portion which is the forest area, there is an adjoining area to it that is not a forest land and the said 2 acres is to the left edge of that square like forest land. So, it is in fact the case of the Forest Department itself that the said 2 acres of land thus constitutes land other than forest land and is adjacent to that forest land. It is our speculation here that this fact might have led to a great deal of confusion on the part of the Revenue Department – that it is free to deal with this non-forest land without consultation or concurrence from the Forest Department. Of course, the Revenue Department would be grossly wrong in law if it held that view.
17. The next document is Annexure C2 which has been prepared or otherwise endorsed by none other than the Tahsildar of the Bangalore South Taluk himself wherein an augmented sketch clearly shows, again, that the 2 acres of land is adjacent to a forest land. Therefore, it should not be open to doubt whether the 2 acres of land is adjacent to the forest land. It indeed is adjacent to a forest land.
18. That it is established that the site of 2 acres of land in Sy No.22 of Mailasandra village is adjacent to a forest land, how does one establish two more aspects:
a) That this forest land is in law, a ‘reserved forest’ and
b) That being adjacent to a ‘reserved forest’, it is within 100 metres of that ‘reserved forest’?
19. Let us first establish a).
20. Your attention is invited to a notification issued by the Government of the Maharaja of Mysore on 14-Dec-1935. This notification was issued in terms of Section 17 of the Mysore Forest Regulation, 1900. It was numbered as G 4906-Ft.154-35-3. What this notification simply did was to classify an area of 514 acres and 29 guntas from four different villages in Kengeri Hobli of Bangalore as a ‘State forest’. A copy of this notification dated 14-Dec-1935 is produced herewith and marked as Annexure ‘D1’. This notification would clearly show that parts of the villages of Mailasandra, Kengeri, Badamanavarthe Kaval and Hemagipura were covered by the said notification. So, this particular notification would show that that the village of Mailasandra was indeed covered by the said notification. However, a further question must arise here on whether Sy.No.22 of Mailasandra village came to be covered by this very notification or through some other notification that had thereby declared the said land as ‘State forest’. Your attention is further invited to Annexure D2. This document goes on to show that Sy No. 22 of Mailasandra village measuring 78 acres and 18 guntas was being taken up for the purpose of constituting the proposed Badamanavarthe Kaval State forest. This document, Annexure D2, would however, show a different notification number though it does bear the date of 14-Dec-1935. So, it would be proper to infer from a perusal of both these documents, Annexure D1 and D2, that Sy. No 22 of Mailasandra was indeed constituted as a ‘State forest’. This is an easily formed contention of a person such as me who is of course, an outsider to these cases. Equally, the Forest Department itself, in its numerous communications has been stating that Sy No. 22 of Mailasandra is in fact, a ‘State forest’ land.
21. So, taking Sy.No.22 of Mailasandra to constitute a ‘State forest’ land, the next question that necessarily arises is that the reference in Rule 41 (2) of the Karnataka Forest rules, 1969 is to a ‘reserved forest’ and not to a ‘State forest’. That is, Rule 41 (2) speaks of a land that is within 100 meters of a ‘reserved forest’ and a land which is situated within 100 metres of a reserved forest cannot be granted at all in terms of the said Rule. Therefore, the question becomes on how the ‘State forest’ that came to be declared as such through the 14-Dec-1935 notification could be treated as a ‘reserved forest’ for the purpose of Rule 41 (2) of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969.
22. In answer, please note that the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963 to enforce which, the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 has been promulgated states very clearly in Section 23 that:
23. Reserved Forests constituted previous to passing of this Act – (1) Any forest which has been notified as a State Forest under the Mysore Forest Act, 1900 or as a Reserved Forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, the Madras Forest Act, 1882 or the Hyderabad Forest Act, 135F, prior to the date on which this Act comes into force, shall be a reserved forest under this Act.
23. Accordingly, the State forest that was declared as such in terms of the 14-Dec-1935 notifications simply became a ‘reserved forest’ for the purpose of the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963 in view of what has been said in Section 23 thereof.
24. The next question, obviously, would be on how we would state here that this adjacent site is also within 100 metres of the said ‘reserve forest’?
25. In answer to the above, your attention is invited to two documents, Annexure B6 and B7 that place the ‘spot inspection report’ by the Range Forest Officer to the effect that the entire site area of 2 acres is within 100 metres of the adjacent ‘State forest’.
26. With the aforesaid analysis, there will be nothing that remains for further consideration than to simply conclude that the grant of the 2 acres of land in Sy No 22 of Mailasandra Village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South for the purpose of erection of a memorial in the name of late Dr Vishnuvardhan, the iconic Kannada star would be plainly and completely illegal in view of the fact that the said 2 acres is situated within 100 metres of a ‘reserved forest’.
27. You may however note that the various communications from the Forest Department do not explicitly state that the said 2 acres is a ‘reserved forest’ but do retain the same description that it had in the year 1935, that of being a ‘State forest’. Still, as said earlier, by reason of Section 23 of the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963, the said ‘State forest’ has by operation of law become a ‘reserved forest’ and the same would mean that the said site of 2 acres which is within 100 metres of the said reserved forest cannot be granted at all by the Revenue Department for the stated purpose.
28. Your attention is also invited to the fact that this objection is not being raised merely because there is a technical objection that could be made in this case. We honestly believe that the surrounding reserved forest is one that deserves to be protected at all costs and the task of that protection would be severely defeated if the proposed memorial were to be constructed in the said 2 acres of land. Besides, the several communications addressed by the Forest Department make it very clear to the Revenue Department that there are several plantations that were raised in the said 2 acres of land by the Forest Department. Essentially, the said 2 acres of land is not therefore, a barren or a wasteland and the same is further evidenced by a perusal of the three photographs that are marked herewith as Annexure ‘F’.
29. It should be further noted that the considerable tree growth in the said 2 acres of land has been sought to be removed by the trust that has been created for the purpose of managing the said grant of land. I attach herewith, a copy of a letter dated 6-Aug-2014 addressed by Dr.Vishnuvardhan Prathisthana to the Commissioner of the Bruhat Bengaluru Maganagara Palike (BBMP) seeking permission to uproot the several trees on that site. This letter should satisfy the recipients of this communication that the photographs that are appended to this letter do speak to the actual state of affairs on the site in question – that there is enormous tree growth on the site. A copy of this request is produced herewith as Annexure E.
30. Finally, your attention is also drawn to the past experience of the person on whose behalf this letter has been made to you all. Mr Shivraj is a volunteer with the BBMP Forest Cell and it is his own testimony that he has rescued numerous wildlife from the said area and it is their collective concern that the erection of a memorial at the site in question would bring grave danger to the existing population of wildlife in the edges of the reserved forest. You should certainly note that the said reserved forest is a block of nearly 79 acres.
31. This letter has also been marked to the Principal Secretary in the Law Department in view of the fact that two different Departments within the Government of Karnataka are at loggerheads over a given issue as we are of the view that should there arise a genuine disagreement between the two Departments of the Government on the interpretation of any provision of law, it would be desirable for the officers of the Law Department to intervene, to clarify and to reliably interpret the disputed provision in question.
32. However, I must state here that all that the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District and the officers of the Revenue Department seem to have done so far in response to the various letters addressed to them by the officers of the Forest Department is to simply maintain a stoic silence and to do nothing more. This kind of a callous response is quite disturbing. There should never have been any need for the officers of the Forest Department to write a series of letters and that too, repeatedly, to the officers of the Revenue Department if only the officers of the Revenue Department had taken the ordinary courtesy to respond to even some of those letters. Such callous disregard to the concerns of a co-ordinate Department of the Government is very unusual and also speaks to a great degree of disorder within the Revenue Department.
33. To end this communication, I would like to request the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District as well as the Principal Secretary, Revenue Department to immediately withdraw the notification (Annexure A) that they have issued to grant the said 2 acres of land in Sy No 22 of Mailasandra village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore South for the purpose of erecting a memorial in the name of late Dr Vishnuvardhan, the iconic Kannada actor on the ground that the said land is within 100 metres of and adjacent to a reserved forest and is therefore, in violation of Rule 41(2) of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969.
34. On a personal note we would like to state that we have come across instances of highly fraudulent and bogus entities being given vast tracts of land by the Government and sometimes, such gifts run into even hundreds of acres and it is truly painful to note that when it came to the task of granting land to erect a memorial in the name of the late Dr Vishnuvardhan, the iconic Kannada star, the Government has simply settled for a relatively small patch of land and that too at a place which should never have been considered for the said purpose. We are fully aware of the fact that the Government does have in its possession, vast tracts of land that could be put to the said use and there is absolutely no manner of compulsion for the Government to give effect to the impugned notification.
35. Finally, it must be said that should the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District as well as the officers of the Revenue Department not take the requisite interest over whether the notification (Annexure A) is lawful for the reasons stated in the communication from the Forest Department and through this letter, we would certainly be constrained to move an appropriate court of law and when we would do so, the grossly unacceptable, indifferent and lawless attitude of the officers of the Revenue Department as well as of the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District would be shown to the court to the fullest extent that it deserves to be shown for the purpose of drawing a direction from the court to initiate disciplinary action against the said erring officials.
Sincerely
K.V Dhananjay
Advocate
No comments:
Post a Comment