Sanctuaries and National Parks — Declaration, Restrictions (Sections 18–35)

Chapter IV of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 builds the legal architecture of India's protected areas. Sections 18 to 34 govern wildlife sanctuaries, and Section 35 governs national parks - the most strictly protected category of land under the Act. The scheme is two-staged: an intention notification opens an inquiry into private and customary rights, and only after those rights are investigated, settled or extinguished does a final notification constitute the protected area. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the restrictions in these areas cannot bite until that statutory process is complete, making the procedure in Sections 18-26A the constitutional fulcrum on which the entire chapter turns.

The two-stage scheme of declaration

The Act deliberately separates the decision to protect an area from the act of protecting it. Under Section 18(1), the State Government may, by notification, declare its intention to constitute any area within or outside a reserved forest as a sanctuary if the area is of adequate ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological, natural or zoological significance for protecting, propagating or developing wildlife or its environment. This is only a notification of intention; it does not yet make the land a sanctuary.

Following the 1991 amendment, Section 18(2) requires the notification to specify, as nearly as possible, the situation and limits of the area. Section 18A provides that once the intention is notified, the State's rights over the land vest in it and an interim ban on grant of new rights and on commercial wildlife exploitation operates until the inquiry concludes, while Section 18B requires the State Government to appoint a Collector to inquire into and determine the existence, nature and extent of rights of any person in or over the land. The final declaration comes much later, under Section 26A. This sequencing is foundational, and is best read alongside the object and constitutional basis of the Act.

The Collector's inquiry and settlement of rights

Once intention is notified, the machinery for settling private and customary rights is activated. Under Section 19, the Collector inquires into and determines the existence, nature and extent of the rights of any person in or over the proposed sanctuary land. Section 20 imposes a bar on accrual of new rights after the intention notification, except by succession, testamentary or intestate. Section 21 requires the Collector to issue a proclamation, in the regional language, calling on every claimant to prefer a claim in writing within two months specifying the nature and extent of the right and the compensation claimed.

The Collector then deals with claims under Sections 22 to 25. Section 24 is the operative settlement provision: on admitting a claim, the Collector may either exclude the land from the limits of the proposed sanctuary, or proceed to acquire the right by agreement or under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (now the 2013 Act), or - in the case of rights other than ownership - allow their continuance subject to conditions with the Chief Wildlife Warden's consultation. The premium the Act places on completing this rights-settlement before restrictions apply was the heart of the dispute in Pradeep Krishen v. Union of India.

Final declaration under Section 26A

Section 26A(1) empowers the State Government to issue the final notification specifying the limits of the area which shall, on and from the notified date, be a sanctuary - but only after the period for preferring claims has elapsed and all claims have been disposed of, or where it proposes a sanctuary over land it already owns. This is the moment the area legally becomes a sanctuary and the restrictions in Sections 27-34 attach.

Two safeguards were strengthened by the 2002 and 2006 amendments. Where any part of the territorial waters is to be included, the limits must be determined in consultation with the Chief Naval Hydrographer and after due regard to the protection of the occupational interests of local fishermen. Critically, Section 26A(3) now provides that no alteration of the boundaries of a sanctuary shall be made except on a recommendation of the National Board for Wild Life. This converted de-notification from an executive convenience into a closely supervised process - a direct legislative response to instances where protected areas were quietly shrunk.

Pradeep Krishen: no restrictions before final notification

The leading authority on the declaration scheme is Pradeep Krishen v. Union of India, (1996) 8 SCC 599 (Hansaria and Sen JJ.). An environmentalist challenged a Madhya Pradesh order permitting villagers living around national parks and sanctuaries to collect tendu leaves from blocks within those areas. The State had eleven national parks and thirty-three sanctuaries covering roughly 16,790 sq km, but for most it had notified only the intention - it had not completed the Section 24 settlement of rights nor issued final notifications under Sections 26A and 35.

The Court held that until the rights of affected persons are investigated, determined and extinguished and a final notification issued, the area is not fully a sanctuary or national park in the strict sense, and pre-existing rights survive. Permitting limited collection of minor forest produce by forest-dependent communities therefore did not, at that stage, offend the Act. The judgment is doubly significant: it located the scheme within Articles 48A and 51A(g), and it sharply criticised the State's chronic delay, in effect directing governments to expedite final notifications rather than leave protected areas in legal limbo.

Restrictions on entry and conduct in a sanctuary

Once constituted, a sanctuary becomes a zone of controlled access. Section 27 restricts entry to a closed list - public servants on duty, persons permitted by the Chief Wildlife Warden, persons with a right over land within the sanctuary, those passing along a public highway, and their dependants - and casts positive duties on residents to prevent offences, report wildlife deaths, extinguish fires and assist in fire-fighting and apprehending offenders. Section 28 empowers the Chief Wildlife Warden to grant entry permits, and only for defined purposes: investigation or study of wildlife, photography, scientific research, tourism, and transaction of lawful business with a resident.

The conduct restrictions follow. Section 29 prohibits destroying, exploiting or removing any wildlife (including forest produce) from a sanctuary, or destroying or diverting its water, except under a permit granted by the Chief Wildlife Warden, and then only when the State Government is satisfied it is necessary for the improvement and better management of wildlife. Section 30 bars setting fire or kindling any fire likely to endanger the sanctuary. Section 31 prohibits entering with weapons except with the Warden's written permission, and Section 32 bans the use of injurious substances, chemicals and explosives. The permit machinery here connects closely to the wider regime of permits and licences and the prohibition on hunting of wild animals.

Balancing livelihood and ecology: the AELDF case

The tension between Section 29's prohibition on removing wildlife and the livelihood of forest-dwellers was tested in Animal and Environment Legal Defence Fund v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 1071, (1997) 3 SCC 549 (Sujata V. Manohar J.). The Madhya Pradesh Chief Wildlife Warden had granted 305 fishing permits to tribals formerly resident in the Pench area, allowing them to fish in the Totladoh reservoir lying in the heart of the Pench National Park and Tiger Reserve. The petitioner and the State of Maharashtra argued that fishing of this scale would damage the biodiversity and ecology of the protected area.

Rather than striking the permits down, the Court adopted a balancing approach. It recognised that the displaced tribals had a livelihood interest, but subordinated it to the integrity of the national park. It permitted the existing permit-holders to fish subject to strict conditions: a monitoring squad was to be posted to prevent poaching and undesirable activity, and the intervenor body was to ensure permit-holders understood and observed conditions designed to avoid ecological damage. The case remains the reference point for reconciling subsistence rights with the rigorous protection that flows from a final notification under Section 35.

Management and control of sanctuaries

Active stewardship is vested in the Chief Wildlife Warden. Section 33 places the control, management and maintenance of every sanctuary in the Chief Wildlife Warden, who may, for safeguarding wildlife or providing visitor amenities, construct and maintain roads, bridges, buildings, fences and barriers, take steps for security, and take measures to improve any habitat - and may regulate, control or prohibit the entry of livestock for grazing in the sanctuary consistent with the interests of wildlife.

Section 33A mandates preventive animal-health measures: the Chief Wildlife Warden must take measures for immunisation against communicable diseases of livestock kept in or within five kilometres of a sanctuary, and no person may take livestock into a sanctuary without first having it immunised. Section 34 tackles the threat from firearms: within three months of declaration, every person residing in or within ten kilometres of a sanctuary who holds an Arms Act licence must register with the Chief Wildlife Warden, and no new arms licence may be granted within that ten-kilometre radius without the Warden's prior concurrence. These radii - five kilometres for immunisation, ten kilometres for arms - are frequently tested and worth memorising precisely.

National parks: the stricter regime of Section 35

National parks are the apex protected category. Under Section 35(1), the State Government may, by notification, declare its intention to constitute an area as a national park for protecting, propagating or developing wildlife or its environment, where the area is of ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological or zoological association or importance. The rights-settlement machinery is borrowed wholesale: Section 35(3) applies Sections 19 to 26A (with a minor exclusion) to the investigation, determination and extinguishment of rights in national park land, exactly as for sanctuaries.

What distinguishes a national park is the severity of the final regime. Section 35(4) requires the final notification once all rights have been settled or vested in the State. Section 35(5) imposes the strongest boundary safeguard in the Act: no alteration of the boundaries of a national park shall be made except on a resolution passed by the Legislature of the State - a higher bar than the National Board recommendation that suffices for sanctuaries. Section 35(6) prohibits destruction, exploitation or removal of any wildlife or habitat damage save under a permit for improved management, and Section 35(7) imposes an absolute prohibition on grazing of any livestock in a national park, except livestock used as a vehicle by an authorised person - a bar admitting no immunisation exception. Section 35(8) then applies the sanctuary provisions in Sections 27, 28, 30 to 32, and clauses of Sections 33, 33A and 34 to national parks. The contrast with sanctuaries - where grazing may be regulated rather than banned - is a favourite examiner's distinction.

Protected areas and species conservation: the Asiatic lion

Protected areas exist to serve species survival, a purpose the Supreme Court underscored in Centre for Environment Law, WWF-I v. Union of India, (2013) 8 SCC 234. The Asiatic lion survived only in the Gir National Park and Sanctuary in Gujarat, leaving the entire population exposed to a single epidemic or calamity. Relying on the Wildlife Institute of India's research, the Court directed the establishment of a second home and ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forests to commence translocation of Asiatic lions from Gir to the Kuno area in Madhya Pradesh within six months, supervised by an expert committee applying IUCN re-introduction guidelines. It simultaneously quashed the proposal to introduce African cheetahs into Kuno.

The decision illustrates how the declaration framework feeds a larger conservation logic: a national park or sanctuary is not an end in itself but a tool, and courts will read the Act purposively to secure the survival of endangered species. It also shows the interplay between protected-area law and the species-listing and habitat schemes elsewhere in the Act, including the protection of specified plants.

Examination takeaways and common traps

For judiciary and CLAT-PG candidates, a handful of distinctions recur. First, the intention notification (Sections 18 and 35(1)) is not the declaration; the area becomes a protected area only on the final notification under Sections 26A and 35(4) - the precise point fixed by Pradeep Krishen. Second, boundary alteration differs by category: a sanctuary needs a National Board for Wild Life recommendation (Section 26A(3)), but a national park needs a resolution of the State Legislature (Section 35(5)). Third, grazing is regulable in a sanctuary (Section 33) but absolutely barred in a national park (Section 35(7)).

Fourth, mind the radii: immunisation duties extend five kilometres around a sanctuary (Section 33A), arms registration ten kilometres (Section 34). Fifth, the rights-settlement Sections 19-26A apply identically to national parks via Section 35(3). Finally, remember the balancing temperament of the courts in AELDF - strict protection does not automatically extinguish every subsistence right, but such rights survive only under tight, monitored conditions. For the full statutory map, return to the Wildlife Protection Act hub.