NUNEY TAYANG(ATTORNEY HOLDER Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitioner has challenged the legality and validity of the Gazette Notification No.119/71 dated 16.02.1973, proposing to constitute Denning Reserve Forest, under Section 5 of the Assam Forest Regulation, 1891, and subsequent Gazette Notification No.118/68 dated 23.09.1977, issued under Section 17 of the Assam Forest Regulation, 1891, declaring approximately 25,641 hectares of land described in the schedule as ,,Denning Reserve Forest, by including thereto 275 hectares of ancestral land belong to the petitioner, within the reserve forest. THE petitioner alleged that the notification constituting the ,,Denning Reserve Forest was issued by the State Government without the knowledge of the actual land owners, in violation of the provisions of the (i) Assam Forest Regulation, 1891; (ii) the Balipara, Tirap, Sadiya Frontier Tract Jhum Land Regulation, 1947; (iii) the Arunachal Pradesh (Land Records and Settlement) Act, 2000 and the Schedule Tribes and other Traditional Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

(2.) THE petitioner has also challenged the legality and validity of the Tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) dated 22.03.2005, by which the villagers of the Denning forest area were made to agree and part away with their ancestral land in question, and the consequent order issued vide No.LRE-5723/06 dated 27.01.2009, passed by the Deputy Commissioner, Tezu, Lohit District, rejecting the representation filed by the petitioner.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner relied on a decision cited in 2005 3 GLT 306 : Bedang Apum and Ors. Vs. State of Arunachal Pradesh and Ors. to explain the Jhum land and the rights of the tribal people over such community land, which may be gainfully quoted as follows: