New Agasthyamalai eviction orders continue to silence Forest Rights Act
A Supreme Court order (A. John Kennedy and Others v. State of Tamil Nadu, delivered on May 29, 2026, by a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta) directed Tamil Nadu to prepare and implement a time-bound plan to remove encroachments from the Agasthyamalai ecological landscape.
The Agasthyamalai landscape is a biodiversity-rich stretch of protected forests, wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves spanning Tamil Nadu and Kerala, including the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve; it is home to the indigenous Kani tribal community, holders of extensive traditional knowledge of forest resources and medicinal plants.
The Court's directions include discontinuing and removing unauthorised government establishments and infrastructure from forest land within six months, and tasking the Forest Survey of India with surveying, demarcating and digitising the boundaries of the Kalakad-Mundanthurai and Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserves and Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary.
Follow-up eviction notices issued in the region under this order have been reported to disregard pending claims filed by forest-dwelling and tribal households under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, raising concerns that lawful FRA claimants are being served eviction notices without their claims being verified or adjudicated first.
The episode illustrates a recurring tension in India's conservation governance: a judicially-driven, park-centric approach to removing "encroachments" against a rights-based statutory framework that recognises the historical presence and entitlements of forest-dwelling communities.
Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 — Individual and Community Rights
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 recognises the pre-existing rights of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have resided in forests for three generations (75 years) prior to December 13, 2005. It grants both Individual Forest Rights (IFR) — such as rights to cultivate and reside on forest land — and Community Forest Rights (CFR) — such as grazing, fishing, access to water bodies, and the right to protect, regenerate, and manage community forest resources. The claim-recognition process runs through the Gram Sabha, which forms a Forest Rights Committee to verify claims before forwarding them to the Sub-Divisional and District Level Committees.
Key Details
- Enacted 2006, notified 2008; administered by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
- Section 4 vests forest rights in eligible claimants; recognition is via a title (Record of Forest Rights) issued after Gram Sabha verification.
- The Gram Sabha is the statutory starting point for both individual and community claims — a deliberate departure from earlier forest laws that vested authority solely in the Forest Department.
- The Act also covers rights of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and nomadic/pastoral communities' seasonal resource access.
Evictions proceeding without adjudicating pending FRA claims run against the Act's core design, under which no forest dweller can be evicted until the claims-verification process is complete — making this a live test of whether conservation enforcement is bypassing statutory due process.
Critical Wildlife Habitat and the Consent Safeguard
The FRA permits resettlement from a National Park or Sanctuary only after an area is formally notified as a "Critical Wildlife Habitat" (CWH) — inviolate for wildlife conservation, based on scientific and objective criteria established by an Expert Committee — and only where free, prior and informed consent of the Gram Sabha has been obtained, along with a resettlement package. This is distinct from the ordinary "encroachment removal" approach applied against unrecognised or presumed illegal occupation, which does not carry the same consent safeguards.
Key Details
- CWH determination requires an open, case-by-case scientific process notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), not a blanket Forest Department or Court designation.
- Displacement from a CWH requires the Gram Sabha's free, prior and informed consent — a higher threshold than land acquisition consent norms elsewhere in law.
- The Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve falls under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972's Tiger Reserve category (core/buffer zoning under the National Tiger Conservation Authority since the 2006 amendment).
Tribal-rights groups have argued that Supreme Court-driven, encroachment-framed evictions in tiger reserve landscapes like Agasthyamalai risk displacing genuine FRA claimants without the CWH process or Gram Sabha consent the Act mandates, converting a conservation order into a de facto rights bypass.
- Supreme Court order: A. John Kennedy & Ors. v. State of Tamil Nadu & Ors., decided May 29, 2026 (Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta).
- Six-month deadline set for removing unauthorised government infrastructure from forest land in the Agasthyamalai landscape.
- 118 serving and retired government employees identified in the judgment for disciplinary/legal action as encroachers.
- Forest Rights Act, 2006 eligibility: continuous forest residence for three generations (75 years) prior to December 13, 2005.
- FRA rights are of two kinds: Individual Forest Rights (habitation/cultivation) and Community Forest Rights (grazing, water access, resource management).
- Agasthyamalai landscape spans Tamil Nadu and Kerala and includes the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, and Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary.
- The Kani community is the principal indigenous tribal group inhabiting the Agasthyamalai hills.