THE INDIAN FOREST (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2012

The Indian Forest (Amendment) Act, 2012 is a bill to amend the Indian Forest Act, 1927. The Act aims to consolidate the law related to forests, transit of forest-produce, and duty leviable on timber and other forest-produce. Section 68 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 contains provisions for compounding of offences. This amendment proposes to revise the limit for a Forest Officer's salary from ₹100 to remove redundancy and increase the compensation limit from ₹50 to ₹10,000. Additionally, it seeks to introduce a new sub-section (4) that makes it mandatory for Forest-officers to obtain and record the views of the Gram Sabha before compounding an offence. The bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Shrimati Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Environment and Forests on February 15, 2012.