Six forest officials were suspended for allowing tribals to illegally extend cultivation to more than 1,000 acres of forest land atop Jawadhu Hills in Tiruvannamalai, and assuring tribal cultivators that they would be given title deeds for the extended cultivated areas in the hills under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006, also known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.

The officials suspended are S. Prabhu, forest range officer, Eco-tourism range; K. Senguttuvan, forest range officer (Nadanoor); F. Arunagiri, forester (Nadanoor range); K. Subramani, forester (Nadanoor range); S. Muthu, forest guard, Jamunamarathoor range and R. Suresh, forest ranger, Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust on deputation.

“The suspended officials had allowed tribals to extend their cultivation into a large tract of forest land in the hills for the past three years, beyond the earmarked areas where they are permitted to cultivate. The method could be referred to as ‘accelerated cultivation’,” a senior forest official told .

The suspended officials had also promised tribals that their names would be added to forest records as ‘traditional cultivators’ so they could become eligible to secure title deeds to the extended area of cultivation. The extension occurred in the Melpattu, Jamunamarathor, and Nadanoor forest ranges in the hills. The hills are home to at least 150 tribal hamlets. 

In return, it was alleged that forest officials received cash on a monthly basis for at least three years. A preliminary inquiry by the office of the District Forest Officer (DFO) found that, on an average, each cultivator could have paid ₹3,000-5,000 every month to the suspended forest staff to allow them to do farming in non-forest areas. The payment was also meant to get land title deeds on forest land that were being cultivated illegally during the same period.

The probe found that around 600-700 tribals could have been involved. “Unlike primitive tribes in Chhattisgarh and Bihar, Mayalali tribes in Jawadhu Hills are socially and economically developed groups. However, they would not have been well versed in the provisions of the Act and could have believed the forest staff’s assurances,” said a forest official.

Forest officials said that as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, those tribals who have been cultivating forest land before December 31, 2005, when the Act came into existence, are eligible for individual land title deeds to cultivate in forest land.

Each such title can be given for an area between half an acre and a maximum limit of 2.5 acres that was cultivated by tribals for generations before the Act was passed. Beneficiaries are allowed to cultivate only in the specified forest area during their lifetime. They cannot transfer the rights to their children or sell or mortgage the land. After the death of the entitled beneficiary, the land returns to the Forest Department.

Claims for such land titles by traditional cultivators will be assessed by the FRA committee at the village, range and district levels, with the District Collector acting as the chairperson of the committee and the DFO as its member-secretary. The committee also has village elders as tribal representatives.

As most of the tribals in Jawadhu Hills are cultivating the forest lands after the Act came into effect, they are disqualified. “Earlier, we rejected over 100 applications from tribals in the hills to obtain a land title deed under the Act because they were not traditional cultivators before the Act. However, the suspended staff suppressed the facts under the Act,” said a forest official.

Senior forest officials noted that regular patrolling by district level officers to remote forest areas could have prevented such incidents. The probe also found that the suspended staff made false entries in forest records for land title deeds that these tribals engaged in cultivation prior to the implementation of the Act. Further investigation is on.