Land Cannot Be Treated as Forest Without Notification Under Sections 3 and 4 of the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963.

The petitioners, the son and widow of Shankarappa, challenged the Regularization Committee’s resolution dated 2 August 2025 rejecting their application for grant of the land they occupied, on the ground that it was forest land

Shankarappa had obtained a 1988 civil-court decree restraining the Forest Range Officer and Tahsildar from interfering with the property, and the petitioners’ names appeared in the RTC extracts

In an earlier writ petition, the High Court directed the authorities to determine the land’s distance from the then Bangalore Mahanagara Palike boundary as of the 1998 application date and, if it was outside the prohibited distance, to place the application before the Committee for consideration

In contempt proceedings, the Tahsildar stated that the land was beyond 18 kilometres from the boundary

The Committee nevertheless rejected the application as the land was said to be forest land

Whether the Committee’s rejection of the application as forest land was contrary to the directions in the earlier writ petition and the Tahsildar’s distance report.

Whether the petitioners were entitled to a direction requiring the authorities to issue a Saguvali Chit for the land.

Under Sections 3 and 4 of the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963, as applied by the Court, land cannot be treated as forest land or deemed forest in the absence of an appropriate notification identifying and declaring it as such.

The earlier writ order required the authorities to assess the land’s distance from the then Bangalore Mahanagara Palike boundary as it stood in 1998 and, if the land was outside the prohibited distance, to place the application before the Committee for consideration.

The judgment also refers generally to the Karnataka Land Revenue Act and Rules governing the Committee, without specifying particular provisions.

The Court treated the Tahsildar’s affidavit in the contempt proceedings—which stated that the land was beyond 18 kilometres from the relevant boundary—as supporting compliance with the distance condition in the earlier order.

It held that the Committee’s forest-land ground could not sustain rejection in the absence of an appropriate notification under Sections 3 and 4 of the Karnataka Forest Act.

The Committee’s resolution was therefore inconsistent with both the earlier direction and the material placed before the Court.

It issued a writ of mandamus directing the Tahsildar and the Regularization Committee to issue a Saguvali Chit to the petitioners for the land in question within three months of receiving the order.