Supreme Court Reasserts Limits on Private Forest Vesting

The Supreme Court’s judgment delivered on November 07, 2025, in Rohan Vijay Nahar & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra delivers much-needed clarity on how private lands may be treated under the Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975 (MPFA). It also reiterates a fundamental constitutional safeguard: no person can be deprived of property unless every statutory requirement is strictly fulfilled.

For decades, several land parcels across Maharashtra were affected by references to notices purportedly issued under Section 35(3) of the Indian Forest Act (IFA) in the early 1960s. These notices were neither served nor followed by the hearings, inquiries, or final decisions that the statute requires. Yet, beginning in the 2000s, revenue records were unilaterally amended to reflect “private forest” status, obstructing transfers and creating uncertainty for owners and developers. The High Court upheld these entries, reasoning that the mere existence of such notices, despite the absence of service or follow-through was enough to support vesting under the MPFA.

Statutory Preconditions Must Be Strictly Fulfilled Before Vesting

The Supreme Court found the statutory chain required for vesting to be entirely missing. It reaffirmed the principle laid down in Godrej & Boyce: issuance of a Section 35(3) notice necessarily includes service on the landholder. Service is what activates the right to object and obligates the State to conduct an inquiry capable of culminating in a Section 35(1) decision. Without this, the process never lawfully begins and vesting under Section 3 of the MPFA cannot occur.

After examining the record across ninety-six appeals, the Court found no proof of service, no inquiries, no final notifications, and no contemporaneous action under Sections 4, 5, 6, or 7 of the MPFA. Private possession continued uninterrupted for decades, revenue entries still showed private names, and post-hoc documents relied on by the State were either inconsistent or unverified. The Court held that such material cannot reconstruct or validate a statutory process that never occurred.

Key Takeaways

A valid, served, and live Section 35 process is mandatory for vesting under the MPFA.
Mutation entries cannot create title. They may only record lawful events.
Stale or abandoned forest notices from the 1960s cannot retroactively trigger vesting in 1975.

Judicial Discipline and the Restoration of Legal Certainty

The judgment also addresses the manner in which the High Court approached the earlier precedent in Godrej & Boyce. The Supreme Court observed that the binding ratio had been minimised or distinguished on immaterial grounds, even though the issues were squarely covered. The Court stressed that sticking to precedent is key for consistent law and public trust in the judiciary.

Furthermore, the Court provided crucial clarifications regarding the standing of various parties, emphasizing that subsequent purchasers are not in a worse position than original owners when statutory conditions for vesting were never fulfilled. Nor does the existence or absence of construction on the land matter; the only legally relevant question is whether the statutory prerequisites existed on the appointed day.

By allowing the appeals, quashing all forest-related mutations, and directing correction of revenue records, the Supreme Court has removed longstanding uncertainty that had clouded titles across several districts. At the same time, it has preserved the State’s ability to initiate fresh proceedings, provided that every step strictly complies with the law.

This decision restores the balance between environmental regulation and private property rights, ensuring that governmental action adheres to the procedural safeguards built into the legislative framework. It reinforces a vital principle: statutory vesting is not a matter of assumption or administrative inference, it is a matter of law, and the law must be followed exactly as written.