The reserved forest is the highest and most protective category in the scheme of the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Chapter II, running from Section 3 to Section 27, sets out a deliberately elaborate two-notification machinery: a preliminary notification of intention to reserve under Section 4, a quasi-judicial settlement of every pre-existing right by a Forest Settlement-officer, and a final notification under Section 20 that converts the tract into a reserved forest with all private rights either admitted, commuted, acquired or extinguished. For the judiciary and CLAT-PG aspirant the chapter is a study in how the colonial State asserted proprietary control over forests while preserving a narrow, statutorily channelled avenue for the rights of villagers and forest-dwellers. This note walks section-by-section through the constitution of a reserved forest, the legal effect of each stage, and the case law that fixes the meaning of the key provisions.
The Scheme: Reserved, Protected and Village Forests
The 1927 Act recognises three statutory categories of Government forest, in descending order of protection: the reserved forest (Chapter II, Sections 3-27), the protected forest (Chapter IV), and the village forest (Chapter III). The organising principle distinguishing the first two is well captured by the maxim that in a reserved forest everything is prohibited unless permitted, whereas in a protected forest everything is permitted unless prohibited. The reserved forest is therefore the most rigorously closed of the three: once constituted, the only rights that survive are those expressly admitted during settlement, and Section 26 makes a long catalogue of acts punishable offences.
The Supreme Court has emphasised that, whatever the colonial pedigree of the Act, the category of "forest" must today be read expansively. In T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 267 (order dated 12 December 1996), the Court held that the word "forest" must be understood according to its dictionary meaning and that the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 applies to all forests "irrespective of the nature of ownership or classification thereof" — expressly including reserved, protected and any area recorded as forest in Government records. The constitution of a reserved forest under Sections 3-27 is thus only one route by which land attracts the full force of forest law.
Section 3 — The Power to Reserve
Section 3 is the enabling provision. It empowers the State Government to constitute as a reserved forest "any forest-land or waste-land which is the property of Government, or over which the Government has proprietary rights, or to the whole or any part of the forest-produce of which the Government is entitled." Three jurisdictional facts are embedded here: the land must be forest-land or waste-land, and the Government must have either ownership, proprietary rights, or an entitlement to the whole or part of the forest-produce. Where the land or the produce belongs wholly to a private person, Section 3 has no application and the State must instead proceed under the regime for forests not belonging to Government in Chapter V.
The phrase "forest-produce" carries the wide meaning given in the definitions clause, Section 2(4). That Government entitlement to produce — rather than to the soil — is enough to attract Section 3 is significant: it allows reservation of land in which the State holds only a limited interest, subject always to settlement of the competing private rights under the following sections.
Section 4 — The Preliminary Notification and the Forest Settlement-officer
Section 4 is the trigger. When the State Government "has decided to constitute any land a reserved forest," it must publish a notification in the Official Gazette (a) declaring that decision, (b) specifying as nearly as possible the situation and limits of the land, and (c) appointing an officer — the Forest Settlement-officer (FSO) — to inquire into and determine the existence, nature and extent of any rights claimed by or alleged to exist in favour of any person in or over the land or the forest-produce, and to deal with them as provided in the Chapter. The proviso requires that where the limits are fixed by reference to a survey of any forest already constituted under any earlier law, no fresh survey is necessary.
The Section 4 notification is only a notification of intention; it does not by itself create a reserved forest. This distinction is the structural heart of the Chapter and was squarely recognised in Banwasi Seva Ashram v. State of U.P., AIR 1987 SC 374, where the Supreme Court dealt with adivasi lands in the Dudhi and Robertganj tehsils of Mirzapur, part of which had been declared reserved forest under Section 20 while "in regard to the other areas notification under Section 4 of the Act was made and proceeding for final declaration of those areas also as reserved forests were undertaken." The Court permitted the adivasis to remain and pressed their claims to be settled within the statutory machinery, underlining that a Section 4 notification leaves the settlement process — and the occupiers' rights — alive until the Section 20 stage.
Section 5 — Bar of Accrual of Forest-rights
Once the Section 4 notification is published, Section 5 freezes the rights position. From that date, "no right shall be acquired in or over the land comprised in such notification, except by succession or under a grant or contract in writing made or entered into by or on behalf of the Government or some person in whom such right was vested when the notification was issued." Equally, no fresh clearings for cultivation or for any other purpose may be made in such land except in accordance with rules made by the State Government, save in the course of exercising a recognised right.
The object of Section 5 is to prevent the manufacture of new claims during the pendency of settlement. It does not extinguish anything; it merely stops the clock so that the FSO inquires into a fixed body of pre-existing rights. The eventual fate of those rights — admission, commutation, acquisition or extinction — is governed by the sections that follow. Section 5 therefore operates in tandem with Section 9, and the two should be read together when answering a problem on the chronology of rights.
Sections 6-8 — Proclamation, Inquiry and the FSO's Powers
Sections 6 to 8 set up the quasi-judicial settlement. Under Section 6, the FSO must publish a proclamation, in the local vernacular, in every town and village in the neighbourhood, specifying the situation and limits of the proposed forest, explaining the consequences of reservation, and requiring every person claiming any right in or over the land or its produce to present, within a period of not less than three months, a written notice or an oral statement of the nature of the claim and the compensation (if any) demanded.
Section 7 directs the FSO, after the period fixed under Section 6 has elapsed, to inquire into all claims duly preferred and into the existence of any rights mentioned in Sections 4 and 5 not the subject of such a claim, taking what evidence he considers necessary. Section 8 arms him for that inquiry with the powers of a civil court in the trial of suits — to summon and examine witnesses on oath, compel the production of documents and material objects, and enter upon, survey and demarcate the land. The settlement is thus genuinely adjudicatory rather than administrative, and the FSO's orders are appealable, which the Chapter recognises in Section 17. The careful, rights-protective design of this stage is what the Supreme Court relied upon in Banwasi Seva Ashram when it insisted the adivasis' claims be processed rather than brushed aside.
Section 9 — Extinction of Unclaimed Rights
Section 9 supplies the sanction that gives the settlement its teeth. Rights in respect of which no claim has been preferred under Section 6, and of the existence of which the FSO has acquired no knowledge by inquiry under Section 7, "shall be extinguished, unless, before the notification under Section 20 is published, the person claiming them satisfies the Forest Settlement-officer that he had sufficient cause for not preferring such claim within the period fixed under Section 6."
Two features deserve emphasis for examination purposes. First, extinction is not automatic on the Section 4 notification — it crystallises only when the Section 20 notification is published; until that moment a tardy claimant may still be heard on sufficient cause. This is the practical effect underscored by the structure approved in Banwasi Seva Ashram v. State of U.P., AIR 1987 SC 374, where occupiers in Section 4 areas retained a live opportunity to assert their rights. Second, Section 9 only extinguishes unclaimed and undiscovered rights; rights that are claimed and admitted travel onward to Sections 11-16 for disposal. The provision thus marries a strict cut-off with a fairness safeguard.
Sections 11-16 — Disposal of Admitted Claims
Where a claim is established, the FSO must dispose of it under Sections 11 to 16 rather than allow it to defeat reservation. Section 11 deals with claims to a right in or over land (other than rights of pasture or to forest-produce): the FSO may, with the State Government's previous sanction, exclude such land from the proposed forest, or proceed to acquire the land by agreement or under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, treating the reservation as a public purpose. Section 12 requires recording, in the case of claims to rights of pasture or to forest-produce, an order admitting or rejecting them wholly or in part.
Sections 13 and 14 govern the record of admitted rights, and Section 15 provides for the continued exercise of admitted rights of pasture or to forest-produce — the FSO may set out alternative forest tracts, or exclude land from the forest, or record an order permitting their exercise "at such seasons, within such portions of the reserved forest, and under such rules, as may be made" by the State Government. Section 16 empowers commutation of any such right by payment of money or grant of land. The cumulative effect is that no admitted private right is simply swept away; it is admitted, relocated, regulated, commuted, or compensated. Section 17 then gives a right of appeal against orders under Sections 11, 12, 15 and 16 to a designated revenue or forest authority, subject only to revision by the State Government.
Section 20 — The Final Notification That Constitutes the Reserved Forest
Section 20 is the operative culmination. When the settlement of rights is complete — the period for preferring claims has expired, every claim has been disposed of, appeals are over, and any land to be acquired has been acquired — the State Government publishes a notification in the Official Gazette specifying definitely, according to boundary-marks or otherwise, the limits of the forest "and declaring the same to be reserved from a date fixed by the notification." From the date so fixed, the tract "shall be deemed to be a reserved forest." The Forest-officer must, before that date, cause a translation of the notification into the local vernacular to be published in every town and village in the neighbourhood.
It is only the Section 20 notification — not the Section 4 notification — that creates a reserved forest in law. This was applied in State of West Bengal v. Suburban Agriculture Dairy & Fisheries (P) Ltd., 1993 Supp (4) SCC 674, where the validity and effect of the Section 20 declaration was in issue, the Court treating the final notification as the decisive act fixing the reserved character and the definite limits of the forest. The principle has been restated in later forest litigation: land does not acquire the status of a reserved forest unless and until a notification under Section 20 of the 1927 Act is issued. The two-notification structure (Section 4 intention; Section 20 constitution), bridged by settlement, is the single most testable point in this Chapter.
Sections 21-25 — Incidental Effects of Reservation
Sections 21 to 25 work out the consequences that flow from the Section 20 notification. Section 22 empowers the State Government, at any time after the Section 20 notification, to make over the management of admitted rights to village communities or to grant land or money in lieu. Section 23 declares that no right of any description may be acquired in or over a reserved forest except by succession or under a grant or contract in writing made by or on behalf of the Government or some person in whom such right was vested when the forest was reserved — a permanent counterpart to the temporary bar in Section 5.
Section 24 regulates the continued exercise of rights, providing among other things that rights continued under Section 15 may not be alienated by grant, sale, lease, mortgage or otherwise without the State Government's sanction (save where appendant to land or a house), and that forest-produce passing under such rights may not be sold beyond the extent admitted. Section 25 permits the State to stop public and private ways and watercourses in a reserved forest on providing substitutes. Together these sections protect the integrity of the reserved forest against the gradual re-accumulation of private interests that reservation was meant to clear away.
Section 26 — Acts Prohibited and Their Penalties
Section 26 is the penal core of the reserved-forest regime and the provision most often examined. It makes punishable a long list of acts done in a reserved forest in contravention of the Act or rules: making fresh clearings, setting fire to the forest or kindling fire without precautions, trespassing or pasturing cattle, felling, girdling, lopping, tapping or burning any tree or stripping its bark or leaves, quarrying stone, burning lime or charcoal, removing forest-produce, clearing or breaking up land for cultivation, hunting, shooting, fishing, poisoning water or setting traps. The general penalty is imprisonment which may extend to six months, or fine which may extend to five hundred rupees, or both, in addition to compensation for damage — though many States have enhanced these figures by amendment. Sub-section (1) read with the fire provisions also empowers the State Government, where fire is caused wilfully or by gross negligence, to suspend the exercise of rights of pasture or to forest-produce for such period as it thinks fit.
The closed character of the reserved forest that Section 26 enforces has been relied on in the conservation jurisprudence. In Pradeep Krishen v. Union of India, (1996) 8 SCC 599, the Court, while dealing with protected areas, stressed the need to complete statutory settlement and to restrict exploitation of forest-produce in legally constituted forests and sanctuaries. The strictness of the prohibition is also the backdrop to the seizure-and-confiscation machinery applied to forest offences — illustrated in Divisional Forest Officer v. G.V. Sudhakar Rao, (1985) 4 SCC 573, where the Supreme Court upheld confiscation of teak illicitly felled and removed from a reserved forest, holding that the special confiscation regime operates independently of the criminal prosecution for the underlying offence.
Section 27 — Power to Declare a Forest No Longer Reserved
Section 27 closes the Chapter by providing the exit. The State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, direct that any reserved forest or any portion of it shall cease to be reserved from a date fixed by the notification. Crucially, the second limb provides that on such cessation, all rights which had been extinguished when the forest was reserved "shall not revive" unless the State Government otherwise directs. De-reservation therefore does not automatically restore the old private rights swept away during settlement; the slate, once wiped under Sections 9 and 20, stays clean unless the Government chooses otherwise.
Section 27 must today be read against the overlay of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. After T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 267, the de-reservation of any forest land, and any use of it for a non-forest purpose, requires the prior approval of the Central Government, so the State's apparently unilateral power under Section 27 is now heavily circumscribed. The same constraint informed Ambica Quarry Works v. State of Gujarat, (1987) 1 SCC 213, where the Court refused renewal of quarry leases over reserved forest land without Central approval, treating quarrying as a non-forest activity. A Section 27 notification, in other words, can no longer be the whole story.
The Reserved Forest After the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
No modern treatment of reserved forests is complete without the 1980 overlay. Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 bars any State Government from de-reserving a reserved forest, or permitting the use of any forest land for a non-forest purpose, or assigning forest land to a private person, or clearing naturally grown trees for reafforestation, without the prior approval of the Central Government. The reserved-forest status conferred by Section 20 of the 1927 Act is thus reinforced, not displaced, by the 1980 Act.
The interaction is illustrated by State of Bihar v. Banshi Ram Modi, (1985) 3 SCC 643, where a mining lessee in a reserved forest in Hazaribagh was permitted to continue winning incidentally discovered associate minerals on an existing lease, the Court drawing a line between continuation of a permitted activity and a fresh non-forest use. That decision was later read down in light of Ambica Quarry Works v. State of Gujarat, (1987) 1 SCC 213, which held that renewal of a mining lease over reserved forest land is itself a fresh grant requiring Central approval under Section 2. For the student, the lesson is that the 1927 Act constitutes and protects the reserved forest, while the 1980 Act governs whether and how that protection may ever be relaxed.
Forest-produce, Government Entitlement and the Limits of Reservation
Because Section 3 permits reservation wherever the Government is entitled to the forest-produce, the reach of reservation is tied to the meaning of "forest-produce" and to whether produce belongs to the Government. In Divisional Forest Officer v. Bishwanath Tea Co. Ltd., (1981) 3 SCC 238, the Supreme Court examined when forest-produce can be said to belong to the Government, reading the entitlement requirement strictly and refusing to treat produce grown on land held by a private party as automatically Government produce. The case is a useful reminder that the State's power to reserve, though wide, is anchored in a genuine proprietary or produce-based interest.
The point also surfaces in the rights of forest-dwellers. In Fatesang Gimba Vasava v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1987 Guj 9, the Gujarat High Court upheld the entitlement of tribal communities to collect and deal in bamboo and bamboo articles as forest-produce, holding that manufactured articles made by tribals from bamboo cut under recognised rights did not cease to be lawful merely because they had been worked upon. Read alongside Sections 12-16, the case shows how admitted rights of forest-produce survive reservation and continue to be exercisable, subject to regulation, within the reserved forest. The constitution of a reserved forest, in short, extinguishes only what the settlement leaves unclaimed; it does not annihilate every customary use.
Exam Pointers and Common Traps
Several recurring traps deserve flagging. First, the trap of the two notifications: a Section 4 notification declares only the intention to reserve; the reserved forest is constituted only by the Section 20 notification, and rights are extinguished under Section 9 only when that final notification issues — the chronology approved in Banwasi Seva Ashram v. State of U.P., AIR 1987 SC 374. Second, the reserved-versus-protected distinction: in a reserved forest everything is prohibited unless permitted (Section 26), while in a protected forest everything is permitted unless prohibited.
Third, de-reservation under Section 27 does not revive extinguished rights and, after 1980, cannot be done without Central approval — the combined effect of Section 27, Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, and T.N. Godavarman v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 267. Fourth, Section 3 turns on Government's interest in the land or its produce; where the forest does not belong to Government, Chapter V on forests not belonging to Government applies instead. Mastering these four pivots — the two notifications, the prohibition/permission contrast, non-revival on de-reservation, and the proprietary trigger of Section 3 — will answer the overwhelming majority of objective and problem questions on this Chapter.
Frequently asked questions
At what stage is a reserved forest actually constituted — Section 4 or Section 20?
A reserved forest is constituted only by the final notification under Section 20, which declares the tract reserved from a fixed date and after which it is "deemed to be a reserved forest." The Section 4 notification merely declares the State's intention to reserve and triggers the settlement of rights. The distinction was applied in Banwasi Seva Ashram v. State of U.P., AIR 1987 SC 374, where Section 4 areas were treated as still pending final declaration.
When are unclaimed rights extinguished under Section 9?
Under Section 9, rights for which no claim was preferred under Section 6 and of which the Forest Settlement-officer acquired no knowledge under Section 7 are extinguished — but only when the Section 20 notification is published, and even then a claimant may be saved if, before that notification, he satisfies the FSO of sufficient cause for the delay. Extinction is therefore neither automatic on the Section 4 notification nor wholly without a fairness safeguard.
What is the difference between a reserved forest and a protected forest?
In a reserved forest, governed by Sections 3-27 and policed by Section 26, every act is prohibited unless expressly permitted or based on an admitted right. In a protected forest under Chapter IV, the position is reversed: acts are permitted unless specifically prohibited by notification or rule. The reserved forest is thus the more rigorously closed and protective category.
Does de-reservation under Section 27 revive the rights lost on reservation?
No. Section 27 lets the State Government declare a reserved forest no longer reserved, but expressly provides that rights extinguished when the forest was reserved shall not revive unless the Government otherwise directs. Moreover, after the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and T.N. Godavarman v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 267, de-reservation requires the prior approval of the Central Government.
Can a mining or quarrying lease be granted or renewed over reserved forest land?
Only with the Central Government's prior approval under Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. In Ambica Quarry Works v. State of Gujarat, (1987) 1 SCC 213, the Court held that even renewal of a quarry lease over reserved forest land is a fresh grant for a non-forest purpose requiring such approval. The earlier, narrower view in State of Bihar v. Banshi Ram Modi, (1985) 3 SCC 643, was read down accordingly.
What acts are punishable under Section 26 and what is the penalty?
Section 26 punishes acts such as making fresh clearings, setting or kindling fire, trespass and cattle grazing, felling or damaging trees, quarrying, removing forest-produce, breaking up land for cultivation, and hunting or fishing in a reserved forest. The general penalty is imprisonment up to six months or fine up to five hundred rupees or both, plus compensation for damage, though several States have enhanced these limits by amendment. The strict regime underlies the confiscation upheld in Divisional Forest Officer v. G.V. Sudhakar Rao, (1985) 4 SCC 573.