Punishment for protest is jila badar

Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh: Sitting on a charpoy near his agricultural land, Dilip Sisodia (42) of Chainpura shows an 85-page notice served by the district administration proposing his removal (jila badar) from his native Burhanpur district under Section 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990. Besides Burhanpur, the notice informs him to stay out of Khandwa, Khargone, Barwani and Harda districts.

According to the Act, a person can be removed outside if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual is engaged or is about to be engaged in the commission of an offence, or in the abetment of an offence. It is commonly used against habitual offenders and miscreants, with the district magistrate possessing the power to transfer such a person out of the district at his/her discretion.

Using the powers under Section 5 of the State Security Act, the District Superintendent of Police (SP) makes a proposal for removal of a person and sends it to the District Collector/Magistrate, who is the final authority in matters related to jila badar. After approval, the Collector will pass the proposal to the divisional commissioner. Hearings of the person to be removed are held at the Collector's court. Here the person in question gets a chance to refute the allegations raised against him/her, although this hearing is just a matter of formality. 

Following the Collector’s decision, the person in question should leave the area or district limits, whichever applies, within 48 hours. The SP should be informed about the person’s place of stay during jila badar. If any case is pending against the accused, he is given conditional permission to come to the district for court appearances. That apart, if the accused is seen in the district even a day before the deadline, he/she can be jailed for three months to two years with a heavy fine. The fine may differ in each case.

In Sisodia’s case, the notice mentioned the 10 cases registered against him. However, he claims that all these cases have false allegations. “Under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, a case was registered against me for attacking forest department staff at Jamun Nala Navra on October 10, 2022, although I was not here at that time. The then ranger had also said in his statement that he does not know me and that the case was registered on someone else's request,” Sisodia claimed. 

Sisodia was given time on May 9 and 15 to present his views at the Collector's court in Burhanpur, located 30 km from his village Chainpura. The final hearing was held on May 27.

“My crime is that I have applied for a land lease," Sisodia asserted. While many old settlers have received land leases under the previous BJP government, more tribals have been taking to the protest path last year to put pressure on the government to provide leases in the election year.

Tumultuous days

Clashes between tribals protesting for their rights and the administration are nothing new to Burhanpur. For two days in April last year, the old tribal settlers under the aegis of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS) launched an indefinite sit-in protest before the Burhanpur Collectorate, alleging that the forest department has been allowing newly-migrated tribals to clear forests and settle there in exchange of the cut timber.

The protest ended two days later, on April 7, when some of the alleged forest cutters were arrested. However, the same night, a group of new settlers attacked Nepanagar police station and freed the arrested men, further escalating the situation.

The JADS alleged that the administration has weaponised the protest to order its participants to leave the district boundaries. First, JADS leader Madhuri Ben was banned from entering the district, then other tribals were shown the door one by one.

Madhuri Ben (55) told 101Reporters that JADS have been protesting the uncontrolled harvesting happening in Siwal, Bakdi, Mandwa and Badnapur in Nepanagar tehsil of Burhanpur district for a long time. “The forest department failed in catching the new settlers, so they started harassing those who have been living here for generations. As the pace of harvesting increased, our movement also intensified. From January last year onwards, we moved beyond complaints to protest,” Ben said.

After the police station incident, the forest department transferred the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO). Within a week of the new DFO taking charge, a joint press conference was organised with the administration on May 2 last year. In this, a preliminary offence report with 21 charges related to involvement in forest crimes were filed against Ben. 

“It should be noted that on April 10, we went to Bhopal and made a written complaint to the Director General of Police seeking action against Burhanpur SP. Nine days later, on April 19, a case was registered against me and my colleague Nitin Varghese." The case was registered under Sections 294 and 323 of IPC and Section 3(1)(d) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, among others.

"Exactly a month later, on May 19, the district magistrate's jila badar notice was issued in my name. I applied for reconsideration of the matter before the Indore Commissioner, but it was declined after four months, upholding the Collector's decision. Now preparations are being made to take the issue to Indore High Court,” she said. 

According to Nitin Varghese, the punishment meted out by the district magistrate acted like ostracisation. “You can neither meet your family nor contribute towards family expenses. When the earning member of the family is thrown out of the district, it becomes difficult to manage the expenses. It is difficult to go to a new place and find work also. A house should be rented out at the place where he would live and he has to depend on the family to meet his expenses.”

Subsequently, the district administration allegedly targeted Antram Awase (34), a tribal leader and JADS worker from Siwal, by serving a removal notice. “Whenever we asked for help, we faced harassment. Sometimes we were shot at, sometimes we were sent to jail, and now we have even been ordered out of our homes and families by citing false cases against us,” said Awase, who is serving a sentence in Khandwa jail after the mass movement in Burhanpur last year.

Awase said cases were registered against him along with hundreds of others from Dwali, Siwal and Chainpura. “I was in jail for 17 days. The rest of the people are also out on bail now.”

According to Awase, the forest department has always been after them. Citing a July 9, 2019, incident, he said the forest staff reached their fields with hundreds of vehicles and nine JCBs and started digging potholes in the fields.

“When we protested, they fired on us. In this, villagers Gokhar Singh Gathia, Rakesh Rama and another person suffered shrapnel injuries. The department action was completely against the rules. Under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, people with lease claims cannot be evicted, whereas Section 4 and Sub-section 5 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, were applicable at these places. During the COVID-19 period, our forest rights claims were rejected without investigation and without gram sabha approval [gram sabhas operating in forest villages are under the forest department's control]. The claims can be cancelled only after verification and inspection. We have once again applied for this.”

As many cases as land claimants  

So far, about 10,000 tribals (these include residents who settled here after 1979 and before 2005) have applied for lease under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, in Burhanpur district. According to Sisodia, 129 families from Chainpura have made land claims. “The administration has selectively registered cases against these families. After last year's movement, the number of cases have increased. Even criminal cases have been registered against 100 members of these families,” he said.  

“Our elders have been living here since 1979. At present, claims are rejected stating that the place was not occupied in 2005. However, we have records of 1979, 2000 and 2001 with us in the form of notices from the forest department. If we came to live here in 2005, how did the forest department issue a notice in 1979 in the name of my family? In the latest notice that I received, it is clearly written that I am being arrested for protesting under the JADS banner. They are trying to crush the movement by imposing cases on us,” Sisodia detailed. 

Jila badar usually lasts from three months to one year. Sisodia said he could have come out on bail in a month or two and taken care of his farm work and family if he was sentenced to prison. “I am worried about my family. What will be their condition once I am thrown out of these five districts?” he said in despair. 

As of January 2025, Madhuri Ben's expulsion from the district has been completed, although she has filed a petition against it in the High Court, but no decision has been taken in this case till now. While Dilip Sisodia is still expelled from the district, the High Court gave its verdict in Antram Awase’s case declaring the illegality of jila badar and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the administration.

Edited by Rekha Pulinnoli

(Mohammad Asif Siddiqui is a Madhya Pradesh-based freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters.)

This story has been produced by 101Reporters, an independent news agency with a network of 3,000+ freelance journalists across the country, in collaboration with Crime & Punishment, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.