HC revokes ‘private forest’ status, raps state government

Setting aside the declaration of several land parcels as “private forest” vested with the state government without the mandatory notice as laid down by the Supreme Court in two important decisions, the high court said it was “unfortunate” that the state government had still not complied with them

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court recently granted relief to most of the petitioners in 184 cases, where the state government had declared privately-owned forest land as “private forest” under the Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975.

HC revokes ‘private forest’ status, raps state government

Setting aside the declaration of several land parcels as “private forest” vested with the state government without the mandatory notice as laid down by the Supreme Court in two important decisions, the high court said it was “unfortunate” that the state government had still not complied with them.

“The state government continued to reel under this misconception for a considerable period of time and at least for more than a decade and it repeatedly adopted the same stand when the two important decisions were delivered, first, in the year 2014 and recently in the year 2025…” Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande said in their 177-page judgment of July 23.

The court was referring to two decisions by the Supreme Court - Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Ltd vs the state of Maharashtra in 2014 and Rohan Vijay Nahar and seven others vs the state of Maharashtra in 2025 - in which it categorically held that in absence of a record proving that a notice had been served under Section 35(3) of the Indian Forest Act or a notification under Section 35(1) of the Act, the action of the forest department mutating its name in the land records “is bad in law”. The high court judges said, “The state continued with its obstinacy even today, which is reflected through the affidavits filed before us.”

The court said that the apex court as well as different benches of the high court had ruled that it was necessary to follow the procedure prescribed under Section 35 of the Indian Forest Act before a forest is declared a “private forest” and is brought within the purview of the Private Forest Act, 1975, acquired by the state government.

The judges said they had also informed the advocate-general about the “volume of work lying in this court because of the defiant approach of the state government, as it is not ready to still accept the law laid down by the highest court of this country”.

The division bench was hearing a group of petitions seeking similar relief against land owned by private entities in Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts. The court divided the 184 petitions into separate categories. While it set aside the state government’s acquisition of “private forest” of some of the land that it vested in the forest department without issuing the mandatory notices to the land owners, it also dismissed some petitions in which the state government had followed the procedure.

The court directed the state government to constitute a committee to scrutinise all such cases which according to the state government involve the issue of “private forest” under the Act of 1975. The judges added that before aggrieved parties approach the high court in such cases, it expected the cases to have been scrutinised by the committee.