Jabalpur
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has given an important decision. The court has asked the Chief Secretary of the state to give this instruction to all the district collectors, without understanding the real intentions and meaning of the law, do not pass orders under political pressure. Along with this, the court has declared the expel to the forest rights worker of Burhanpur district illegal. Also, a fine of 50 thousand rupees was imposed on the government.
In an order passed on 20 January and uploaded on Thursday, the single bench of Justice Vivek Aggarwal found several legal discrepancies in the removal order, including the witnesses not recorded. He said that the registration of the case cannot be the basis of removal. The court made this comment on the petition of Anantram Awase, a worker of the awakened tribal Dalit organization of Burhanpur.
Anantharam was agitating against the order of deforestation passed by the Collector of Burhanpur on 23 January 2024. After which the collector had expelled (district Badar) from the district for one year. Petitioner’s counsel Priyal Suryavanshi said, ‘The duration of expulsion ended on January 22, 2025, but the petitioner stressed that the expulsion should be investigated on the basis of its merits and it should be seen that the District Magistrate Burhanpur was working out of his authority and was influenced by external views rather than law.
A case was registered on Avasse between 2018 and 2023 for 11 crimes such as using forest produce without permission and cutting trees without permission. Subsequently, a case of rioting was registered under the Indian Penal Code in 2019. In 2022, another case was registered against him for attempting murder and preventing a government employee from performing his duties. During the hearing, the court found that no statement was recorded about proving how it is threatening public system and security.
The court imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the state government for harassing the petitioner, “Two things are absolutely clear. Firstly, in the order given by the District Magistrate, forest crimes have been mentioned without any relevance, because forest crime does not come under the Security Act. Secondly, the word used is ‘if a person has been convicted’ – but there is no material to show on records that the petitioner in relation to two offenses (registered in 2019 and 2022) under the Indian Penal Code Has been convicted.
