The basic unit for the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act is to be the Gram Sabha. The responsibility of State Governments is to publicise the provisions of the Act, train officials to implement it and constitute the required committees.
The Forest Rights Committee
Each Gram Sabha has a Forest Rights Committee attached to it. The Committee is required to assist the Gram Sabha right from the time of receiving claims. It is to help in the verification of claims and present its findings on the nature and extent of claims to the Gram Sabha for its consideration.
The Forest Rights Committee must acknowledge every claim made in writing.
The Duties of Gram Sabhas
Gram Sabhas are required to call for claims and authorize their Forest Rights Committees to determine them. Claims should be substantiated by at least two of the pieces of evidence. They should ordinarily be made within a period of three months from the date on which they are called for although Gram Sabhas may extend the three-month period after recording the reasons for doing so in writing.
Once claims have been received, the concerned Gram Sabha must fix a date to begin the process of determining them and, if required, intimate the date to adjoining Gram Sabhas and to the Sub-Divisional Level Committee.
The Forest Rights Committee is required to actually verify claims and submits its findings in writing to the Gram Sabha. After considering the findings of the Committee, the Gram Sabha must pass appropriate resolutions and forward them to the Sub-Divisional Level Committee.
The Verification of Claims by Forest Rights Committees
After informing the concerned claimant and the Forest Department, the Forest Rights Committee is required to, inter alia, visit the site, physically verify the nature and extent of the claim, make maps delineating the area of the claim, and receive evidence from the claimant and witnesses.
If a claim has been made by pastoralists, nomadic tribes, or members of a primitive tribal group or pre-agricultural community, the Committee must ensure that they or their representatives are present when the claim is determined.
Once a claim has been determined, the Committee must record its findings and present it to the Gram Sabha.
If there are conflicting claims, the Forest Rights Committees of the Gram Sabhas involved must meet jointly to consider matter and then present their findings to their respective Gram Sabhas in writing. If the Gram Sabhas involved cannot resolve the conflicting claims, the claims must be referred to the Sub-Divisional Level Committee to be resolved.
Evidence for the Determination of Rights
Various pieces of evidence can be used to substantiate claims including public documents, Government records, orders, notifications, circulars, resolutions; Government authorised documents such as ration cards, passports, etc.; quasi-judicial and judicial records; research studies by reputed institutions such as anthropological Survey of India, traditional structures establishing antiquity such as wells, burial grounds, sacred places, as well as statements of elders other than claimants reduced to writing.