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Showing contexts for: private forest in P.N. Pathak @ Pradip Narayan Pathak vs The State Of Jharkhand on 10 October, 2023Matching Fragments
9. Reliance is placed on 1962 (3) SCR 727. It is submitted that Section 29 is pari-materia. In Section 30 of the Bihar Private Forest Act, 1946 it was held that once the notification is issued under the proviso to Section 30 that shall not amount to private protected forest only after enquiry it can be regarded as private forest.
ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF STATE/FOREST DEPT.
10. Learned counsel for the State in all cases have opposed the quashing petition and counter affidavit has been filed. It is the case of M/s Electrosteel Steels Ltd. instead of establishing steel plant at the permitted site i.e. Village Parbatpur, Block Chandankiyari, District Bokaro encroached upon approx. 220 acres of notified and demarcated forest land in Bhagabandh, Siyaljori, Hutupathar and Bandhdih village under Bokaro Forest Division jurisdiction to establish the said steel plant and thus, violating the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, Indian Forest Act, 1927 and Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Mouza Bhagabandh, Siyaljori, Hutupathar and Bandhdih falls within Chas Block of Bokaro District.
the [State] Government shall publish a notification in the Official Gazette specifying definitely, according to boundary marks erected or otherwise, the limits of the forest which is to be constituted a private protected forest, and declaring the same to be a private protected forest from the date fixed by the notification, and from the date so fixed such forest shall be deemed to be a private protected forest:
Provided that, if in the case of any forest in respect of which a notification under Section 14 has been issued, the [State] Government consider that the inquiries, procedure and appeals referred to in this Chapter will occupy such length of time as to cause undue delay in the forest being declared a private protected forest, such delay, in the opinion of the [State] Government, being prejudicial to the public interest, the [State] Government may, pending the completion of the said inquiries, procedure and appeals, declare, by a notification containing the particulars specified in this section, such forest to be a private protected forest.
21. From a bare reading of the above two provisions, it shall be apparent that contrary to the provision of Section 29 of the Indian Forest Act, neither Section 30 or any other provision of the Bihar Private Forest Act, relates to a land which is a government land. As the very name suggests it relates to private forests which were recorded in the names of the landlords and therefore Section 4 expressly provides that right of the landlord and the right of any other person to cut, collect or remove trees etc. shall not be exercised in contravention of the provisions made under this Act. Section 13 makes specific provision to constitute a private protected forest. The forest so declared private protected forest cannot be equated with the Protected Forest which was so declared under the Indian Forest Act. Provisions of Bihar Private Forest Act basically applied to those private lands of the land lords which were recorded as jungle Jhari in the records of rights as per the definition of forest under Section 3 of that Act. Before independence they were protected by the State and post-independence it sought to be managed by the Bihar Act 1947. Section 2 makes it abundantly clear that Bihar Private Forest Act, 1947 will not apply to any land which is vested in the Govt or regarding which notification and orders is issued under the Indian Forests Act. After a private forest is declared as private protected forest its control and management vests in the State as has been held in Guru Datta Sharma v. State of Bihar, (1962) 2 SCR 292
18. When a private forest is declared a "private protected forest" under the provisions of Chapter 3 the provisions of Chapter IV come into operation. Section 31 with which this Chapter opens enacts:
"31. The control and management of every private protected forest shall vest in the Provincial Government."
The management and control thus vested is to be exercised through forest officers.
Therefore, the ratio as laid down in State of Bihar and others v. Lt.