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The Calcutta High Court has observed that the difficulties or roadblocks, which have been pointed out in the report filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests shall be resolved by taking necessary assistance from the IT wing of the Forest Department or the IT wing of the Government of West Bengal.
The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya disposed of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking to protect the rights of the forest dwellers, who have organised themselves into a committee called Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC).
The case of the writ petitioner rests upon an order issued by the Government of West Bengal dated 11th December, 2019 whereby the government allowed the Directorate of Forests to implement the plantation works directly by them by engaging local JFMC members, instead of engaging contractors.
A direction has been issued pursuant to the orders of His Excellency the Governor West Bengal to allow the Directorate of Forests to implement the plantation works directly by them by engaging local JFMC members instead of engaging contractors.
Further, it was ordered that the material should be procured after observing necessary tender/quotation procedure and the labour payments should be made as per rate notified by the Labour Department from time to time by making direct credit to the respective bank account of the labourers by ECS. The said order has been issued with the concurrence of the Finance Department.
It is submitted by the Advocate appearing for the petitioner that pursuant to the Government order dated 11th December, 2019, another order was passed on 5th May, 2021 by the Chief Conservator of Forests, South West Circle, West Bengal addressed to the Divisional Forest Officer, Purulia enclosing the Government order dated 11th December, 2019 with a direction that the procedure stated therein should invariably be followed in all other wages / labour payments by ECS only. It is a submission made on behalf of the petitioner that though such was the Government order, the Directorate of Forests in utter derogation to the said order has invited E-tender for allotting the works to contractors.
According to the petitioner, such a procedure adopted by the Directorate of Forests is contrary to the Government order and is illegal. In this regard, several representations were made by the writ petitioner but none of them had evoked any response, which necessitated the writ petitioner to approach this Court by way of a public interest litigation.
Pursuant to the directions issued by the Court, a report has been filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests and in paragraph 6 of the report, certain difficulties have been expressed by the Chief Conservator of Forests, which are set out hereunder:-
6. Though it was thought that this particular G.O of Forest Department in question would help a lot in implementing the Plantation Works, it became difficult in reality due to the following reasons
I. Earlier while following the G.O No-5400-F(Y) dt 25/6/12 and its subsequent amendment No-2254-F dt 24/4/14 had been followed, Division Office was required to make only bills in favour of contractors either in TR-26 or in TR- 70, as the case maybe, but now, the Division office are required to create a series of wage bills time to time.
II. . Further, as the details of Plantation Labourers such as name, Mobile No, Bank A/c no, IFSC, etc which are mandatory for preparation of the bills, are not known and varies continuously, until and unless these data are collected from the field in a proper manner by the filed staffs, Divisional Forest Officer would not be in a position to entre these mandatory preliminary data in IFMS for preparation of the bill and it becomes time consuming and cumbersome.
III. If any mistake takes place in entering the aforementioned basic data, the payment of those particular Plantation Labourers move to failed transaction. This situation is extremely difficult to tackle with. From the system, it can’t be ascertained properly that who the sufferers are. Naturally, these have to be clarified from file by updating the passbooks of the concerned persons. This process creates further delay in making payment to another 15-20 days more.
IV. The DFOs perform the plantation activities departmentally when the tender processes are failed completely. It is not that they have completely ignored the latest G.O of Government LeG.O No FOR-99/185/2019- SECTION (FOR)- Deptt of Forest-1/72515/2019 Dt 11/12/2019( FILE NO FOR-99/185/2019-SECTION(FOR)-Deptt).
V. As fund was placed on percentage basis, next part of the works are hampered drastically due to unwillingness of the concerned JFMC members to carry out the next part of the works. Normally, it took nearly 1/1.5 months to process the bill through muster roll and subsequent payments through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer). As a result, till the payment of 1″ part is cleared, the JFMC members were not willing to take up the next part of the work. Had it been implemented through tender, the concerned contractors would take care of the situation.
VI. Further, the Plantation Workers who are generally the JFMC members have their own other reservations such as-
* They are required to go to Banks to withdraw cash from their accounts and the entire process resulted into 1 day of loss of manday.
* As they are not very conversant with the procedure of withdrawal, they have to depend on some other person who in turn claims money for their service.
* In a district like Purulia, Block Headquarters like Bndwan, Baghmundi, Mnabazar-1 &11, Banks are situated far off from most of the village. Normally communication is a problem and communication during COVID19 pandemic situation at those blocks can easily be comprehended.
It is a fact that all the divisions have faced all the aforementioned difficulties during the financial year 2020-21 while implementing the Plantation Works as per the aforementioned G.O of Forest Department. The Matter was brought to the notice of the Appropriate Authority before the implementation of the Plantation works during 2021-22. Simultaneously, Majority of the JFMCs where the plantation works were supposed to be implemented during 2021-22, was consulted. While JFMCs have explained their problems. Appropriate Authority has also made provisions of fund for floating tender and quotation, as the case may be, as per GO No-5400-F(Y) dt 25/6/12 and its subsequent amendment No2254-F dt 24/4/14 for creation of plantations. However, in Clause 2 of Analysis of Estimates of Tender Notice it was clearly mentioned that during engagement of labourers priority should be given to the members of concerned JFMC.”
The petitioner has filed a supplementary affidavit and also an exception to the report filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests.
In terms of the above office order, direction has been issued by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests to all his officers that the JFMCs have to be reconstituted after conducting elections and the District Forest Officers were directed to take proper initiative to complete annual general meeting and election of executive committee within 15th May, 2022 positively and report compliance. There was an embargo placed in the said order stating that no distribution of JFMS share should be undertaken till the process of annual general meeting and election of office bearers are completed.
It has been almost a year since the above office order dated 11th April, 2022 has been passed. By now, the annual general meeting and the election of the executive committee should have been completed as per the directive issued where the time limit was fixed as 15th May, 2022. As could be seen from the Government Order dated 11th December, 2019, there was a specific direction issued allowing the Directorate of Forests to implement the plantation works directly by them by engaging local JFMC members. This Government order having not been rescinded or superseded, is bound to be followed by the Directorate of Forests.
In the preceding paragraphs, the Court has extracted the difficulties, which were pointed out by the Chief Conservator of Forests. On perusal of those difficulties, the Bench found that most of them are “procedural in nature”. The object behind the Government order permitting the Directorate of Forests to implement the plantation works directly by the JFMC is with a view to rehabilitate those persons, who worked for such schemes and who do not have any source of employment.
Therefore, the difficulties, which have been pointed out such as, the mobile numbers, bank accounts, IFSC details, etc. for the purpose of preparation of bills has to be sorted out by the Forest Department and that cannot stand in the way of implementing a welfare scheme to rehabilitate the members of the JFMCs.
In any event, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests has issued a directive on 11th April, 2022, which should have been implemented by now and if the same had been implemented, the Court saw no impediment or road blocks for the Forest Department to scrupulously implement the Government order dated 11th December, 2019.
If the annual general meeting and election of the executive committee had already been completed in certain JFMCs or in all JFMCs, then the Directorate of Forests shall implement the Government order dated 11th December, 2019 whereby His Excellency the Governor of West Bengal was pleased to allow the Directorate of Forests to implement the plantation works directly by them by engaging local JFMC members instead of engaging contractors.
“The difficulties or road blocks, which have been pointed out in the report filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests shall be resolved by taking necessary assistance from the IT wing of the Forest Department or the IT wing of the Government of West Bengal and such issue should not be cited as a reason for not implementing the Government order dated 11th December, 2019”, the order reads.