"The picture changed in just five months": Meghamalai hill villagers hopeful after Supreme Court panel announcement

The Supreme Court on Friday appointed a committee headed by its former chief justice B. R. Gavai to examine the claims made under the Forest Rights Act by the people of the Meghamalai forest region. The committee's interim report is to be filed on February 1, 2027.

"This decision has given hope to about 8,000 families," say the hill residents of the Kadamalaikundu panchayat. More than fifty hill villages lie in the Kadamalaikundu-Myladumparai panchayat union of Andipatti taluk in Theni district; growing silk cotton, cashew, millets and vegetables is the people's main occupation.

A public interest case in the High Court alleged that about 5,000 hectares of hill land in the Varusanadu, Myladumparai, Meghamalai, Kandamanur and Chinnamanur forest ranges had been encroached upon. In 2022 the Madras High Court ordered the eviction of the people living in Meghamalai, and in May this year the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, saying 4,594 encroachers had occupied 5,072 hectares of protected forest and a Central Empowered Committee could recommend deploying a paramilitary force if needed.

Distressed by the order, the hill villagers filed a review petition. At its hearing the Supreme Court ordered a special committee to study their forest rights claims and submit its report in a sealed cover.

"The court has ordered that only the first of three categories of people be considered. We will press the committee to examine this again," said Maruthupandi of Valipparai hill village. "We were anxious when the verdict came in May. In just five months the situation has changed and we have got an opportunity to voice our views. The committee should sit and speak directly with the hill people and local administrations before deciding."

"Big businessmen are running resorts in Meghamalai; we have nothing to do with that," he said, also questioning the refusal to list silk cotton as minor forest produce. "They call honey, kadukkai and nellikkai minor forest produce. It was the government itself that told us to grow silk cotton trees. We are fighting only for our ancestral land," he stressed.