IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) FRIDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF FEBRUARY TWO THOUSAND AND NINE PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.14528 of 2002 Between: Muchika Vungaiah S/o. Kosaiah R/o. Erraguttapadu, Nellipaka P.O., Bhadrachalam Mandal, Khammam District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 Divisional Forest Officer, Bhadrachalam, Khammam District. 2 Project Officer, Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Bhadrachalam, Khammam District. 3 Government of A.P., Rep. by Principal Secretary, Department of Forests, Secretariat, Hyderabad. 4 Government of A.P., Rep. by Principal Secretary, Department of Social Welfare, Secretariat, Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR. PALLE RAJESWAR FOR MR.K.BALAGOPAL Counsel for the Respondents:NONE APPEARED The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a writ of mandamus to declare the action of respondent No.1 in demolishing and burning down the Gotti Koya hamlet of Erraguttapadu in Bhadrachalam Mandal in the last week of June and the first week of July, 2002, as arbitrary and unlawful. The petitioner sought for a direction to respondent No.4 to forthwith take steps to resettle the Gotti Koya residents of Erraguttapadu, with adequate resources of livelihood. At the hearing, the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that similar writ petitions have been disposed of by this Court in two separate orders, dated 28.08.2008 and 07.11.2008 in Writ Petition Nos.4960 of 2002 and 16048 of 2004 respectively wherein this Court having taken note of the enactment of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (for short ‘the Act’), directed that the petitioners therein cannot be evicted. This Court also took note of the fact that the writ petition filed challenging the vires of the abovementioned Act is pending before the Division Bench, which allowed the process of determination of forest rights of claimants to go on. The petitioners therein were given liberty to approach the Forest Rights Committee and Gram Sabha with a request to process their claims for conferment of rights over the forest land on them. Following the said orders of this Court, this writ petition is disposed of with the direction that the observations and directions contained therein shall form part of this order. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 20th FEBRUARY, 2009. kvni