The Indian Forest Act

Short title and extent

Interpretation clause

Power to reserve forests

Notification by State Government

Bar of accrual of forest-rights

Proclamation by Forest Settlement-officer

Inquiry by Forest Settlement-officer

Powers of Forest Settlement-officer

Extinction of rights

Treatment of claims relating to practice of shifting cultivation

Power to acquire land over which right is claimed

Order on claims to rights of pasture or to forest-produce

Record to be made by Forest Settlement-officer

Record where he admits claim

Exercise of rights admitted

Commutation of rights

Appeal from order passed under section 11, section 12, section 15 or section 16

Appeal under section 17

Pleaders

Notification declaring forest reserved

Publication of translation of such notification in neighbourhood of forest

Power to revise arrangement made under section 15 or section 18

No right acquired over reserved forest, except as here provided

Rights not to be alienated without sanction

Power to stop ways and water-courses in reserved forests

Acts prohibited in such forests

Power to declare forest no longer reserved

Formation of village-forests

Protected forests

Power to issue notification reserving trees, etc

Publication of translation of such notification in neighbourhood

Power to make rules for protected forests

Penalties for acts in contravention of notification under section 30 or of rules under section 32

Nothing in this Chapter to prohibit acts done in certain cases

Protection of forests for special purposes

Power to assume management of forests

Expropriation of forests in certain cases

Protection of forests at request of owners

Power to impose duty on timber and other forest-produce

Limit not to apply to purchase-money or royalty

Power to make rules to regulate transit of forest-produce

Powers of Central Government as to movements of timber across customs frontiers

Penalty for breach of rules made under section 41

Governments and Forest-officers not liable for damage to forest-produce at depot

All persons bound to aid in case of accident at depot

Certain kinds of timber to be deemed property of Government until title thereto proved, and may  be collected accordingly

Notice to claimants of drift-timber

Procedure on claim preferred to such timber

Disposal of unclaimed timber

Government and its officers not liable for damage to such timber

Payments to be made by claimant before timber is delivered to him

Power to make rules and prescribe penalties

Seizure of property liable to confiscation

Power to release property seized under section 52

Procedure thereupon

Forest-produce, tools, etc., when liable to confiscation

Disposal, on conclusion of trial for forest-offence, of produce in respect of which it was  committed

Procedure when offender not known, or cannot be found

Procedure as to perishable property seized under section 52

Appeal from orders under section .55, section 56 or section 57

Property when to vest in Government

Saving of power to release property seized

Punishment for wrongful seizure

Penalty for counterfeiting or defacing marks on trees and timber and for altering boundary-marks

Power to arrest without warrant

Power to release on a bond a person arrested

Power to prevent commission of offence

Power to try offences summarily

Power to compound offences

Presumption that forest-produce belongs to Government

Cattle-trespass Act, 1871, to apply

Power to alter fines fixed under that Act

State Government may invest Forest-officers with certain powers

Forest-officers deemed public servants

Indemnity for acts done in good faith

Forest-officers not to trade

Additional powers to make rules

Penalties for breach of rules

Rules when to have force of law

Persons bound to assist Forest-officers and police-officers

Management of forests the joint property of Government and other persons

Failure to perform service for which a share in produce of Government forest is enjoyed

Recovery of money due to Government

Lien on forest-produce for such money

Land required under this Act to be deemed to be needed for a public purpose under the   Land Acquisition Act, 1894

Recovery of penalties due under bond

Saving for rights of Central Government

[Repealed.]

All sections

The Forest Settlement-officer shall take down in writing
all statements made under section 6, and shall at some convenient place inquire into all claims duly
preferred under that section, and the existence of any rights mentioned in section 4 or section 5 and not
claimed under section 6 so far as the same may be ascertainable from the records of Government and the
evidence of any persons likely to be acquainted with the same.

LAWGIST

# 7 Inquiry by Forest Settlement-officer