central empowered committee report (i) of the cec in writ petition

lease made or continued by or on behalf of Sarkar. From
the above it may be seen that all land falling in the erstwhile
Sandur State fell in the category of “Forest” except the land
(a) under grant/lease and (b) with a permanent heritable and
transferable right of use and occupancy.
2. The Sandur Administration Report for the year 1943-44
(enclosed at ANNEXURE-R-2 to this Report) states that in
the erstwhile Sandur State out of the total forest area of
75619 acres an area of 70,000 acres was reserved forest
(State Forest) while the remaining 5,619 acres was village
forest. The letter dated 24 th June, 1949 of the Chief Forest
Officer of the erstwhile Sandur State addressed to the
District Forest Officer, Bellary Division, Bellary (enclosed at
ANNEXURE-R-3 to this Report) states that the total forest
area in the State was 125 sq. miles (about 80,000 acres) out
of which 117 sq. miles was Reserved Forest (State Forest)
while the remaining 8 sq. miles was village forest. The
Mysore State Gazetteer also indicates that as in 1969-70, an
area of 75,520 acres of land fall in the category of unclassed
forest in the Sandur Range (enclosed at ANNEXURE-R-4) to
this Report.
3. The erstwhile Sandur State, in terms of the merger
agreement dated 1 st April, 1949 between the Government of
India and the Raja of Sandur State, merged in India. The
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