The Supreme Court stayed on Thursday its February 13 order directing 21 States to evict 11.8 lakh “illegal forest dwellers” whose claims over the forestland have been rejected by authorities.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Naveen Sinha and MR Shah directed the state governments to file affidavits giving details about the process adopted in rejecting the claims. The court posted the matter for further hearing on July 10.

It had agreed on Wednesday to hear the Centre’s plea seeking withholding of its February 13 order asking 21 States to evict nearly 11.8 lakh forest dwellers whose claims were rejected.

After briefly hearing the matter on Thursday, the bench said, “We stay and keep on hold our February 13 order.”

The bench also directed that affidavits have to be filed by the Chief Secretaries of the States giving details of various steps covered for carrying out the eviction of the forest dwellers.

Though the apex court gave relief to the Centre, it was annoyed as to why it was in “slumber” for such a long time and approached it only after the directions were passed on February 13.

The top court said many of the points being raised now were never raised when the matter was pending.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the NGO Wildlife First submitted that bonafide forest dwellers will not be affected and those “who have been granted pattas by the authorities will not be affected.”

The Centre had rushed to the top court for modification of the order saying the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 was a “beneficial” legislation and should be construed liberally to help “extremely poor and illiterate people” who are not well-informed of their rights and procedure under the law.

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