BEDANG APUM Vs. STATE OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Nature of right of an individual over community land belonging to the community of the State and whether the nature, character and status of such community land so lang maintained by the community since time immemorial is to be respected and maintained and/or protected, is the basis of dispute raised in this writ petition.

(2.) Gaon Burah of Remi and Poblung village respectively under Dambuk area of the Lower Dibang Valley District are the petitioners of this writ petition who has taken up the cause of the inhabitants of different villages on Dambuk area. The common grievance highlighted by the petitioners in this writ petition is that they have approached this court for maintaining their traditional right over the community land inherited from their ancestors and is occupying by carrying common cultivation commonly known as Jhum cultivation, since last about one and half century. It is the grievance of the petitioners that over some of the parts of their community land the private respondents with the aid and assistance of the official respondents are trying to obtain Land Possession Certificate (for short "LPC") in their favour, thereby curving out those area as their individual land.

(3.) The petitioners have pleaded interalia that the various villages under Dambuk area like Poblung, Tapat, Remi Yapgo and new Poblung are inhabited by Adi tribe (comprising Pasi, Padam, Millang, Kimkar andDalbing). Apart from these Adi villages, the inhabitants of Kapang and Sirang villages belonging to IDU Mishmi tribe, which is also locally known as MIDI, migrated to Dambuk area after the great earthquake of 1950. Most of the residents of these two villages have migrated during the period 1970 to 1990 and prior to 1997 no IDU Mishmi except late Nyapak Linggi had settled at Dambuk villages.