ESA in Kodagu: Can the Forest Department Take Away the Kodava Arms Exemption?

A close reading of the 7th Draft Notification finds no arms ban – so where would the Forest Department get such a power?

Recently, while speaking to opponents of the ESA (Eco-Sentive Areas/Ecologically Sensitive Areas) in Kodagu – which many people in Kodagu and elsewhere mistakenly refer to simply as the “Kasturirangan Report” – I noticed a particular fear emerging repeatedly.

Yesterday, a visibly disturbed cousin of mine from Coorg put his fears into words, bluntly and almost helplessly:

“Once the Kasturirangan Report is implemented, we will lose our right to possess arms. The Forest Department will harass us and tell us that this ESA is a forest area and that we are no longer allowed to possess firearms. They will confiscate our guns. Then how will we celebrate Puthari and Kailpodh? How will we carry out our traditional birth and death rituals without the gun? Will we one day have to make wooden models of guns and worship them during Kailpodh?”

For him, this is not merely a question about firearms or government regulations. It touches something deeply woven into the traditions and cultural practices of the Kodavas – a fear that, in the name of environmental protection, something deeply connected to their way of life could eventually be taken away.

That got me thinking. So I did some research to find out whether this fear has any basis in law. Unfortunately, most opinions on the report are based on hearsay, rather than its actual content.

If parts of Kodagu are eventually declared an ESA, could a Forest Department official tell a Kodava that he can no longer possess or carry his firearm simply because his home or coffee plantation falls within the ESA?

The answer, based on the provisions of the 7th Draft Western Ghats ESA Notification dated July 27, 2026, appears to be no.

There is an important reason – The draft ESA notification (Page 150-151) contains no provision prohibiting the possession or carrying of arms.

It does not mention firearms, ammunition or weapons. It does not amend the Arms Act. It does not withdraw the Central Government’s exemption granted to Coorg(Kodava) by race and every Jumma(Jamma) tenure holder in Coorg. And it does not state that the Forest Department is being given a new power to regulate firearms within ESA areas.

That raises a fundamental legal question: Can an environmental notification be used to impose a restriction that the notification itself does not contain?

The legal basis for the Arms Exemption lies not in Karnataka’s Forest Department but in the Arms Act, 1959. Section 41 of the Arms Act gives the Central Government the power to exempt a person or class of persons from provisions of the Act.

Exercising that power, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued S.O. 3872(E) on October 29, 2019, exempting:
“Every person of Coorg by race and every Jumma tenure holder in Coorg”, from Sections 3 and 4 of the Arms Act in respect of specified arms and ammunition, subject to the conditions contained in the notification. The present exemption runs until October 31, 2029.

That is a Central Government exemption under a Central Act. It is not a concession granted by a Forest Officer. It is not an ESA permission. And it is not a privilege created by the Karnataka Forest Department.

Note: To put it correctly, just as Coorg (singular) and Coorgs (plural) are Anglicized forms referring to Kodava and Kodavas, respectively, “Jumma” or “Jamma” is also an Anglicized term that entered the records during the colonial period and continues to be commonly used today. Historically, it was known as “Janma” land, meaning land held by a “hereditary right of birth”.

Then what exactly does ESA regulate?

The 7th Draft ESA notification is concerned with environmental regulation. It identifies activities that are prohibited or regulated within the proposed ESA, including mining and quarrying, certain industries, thermal power projects, large construction and township projects and specified other developmental activities. It also establishes mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement.

But nowhere in those provisions does it say: “Firearms shall not be possessed or carried within the ESA.”

Enforcement power is not unlimited power

The draft gives State Governments responsibility for implementing and enforcing the ESA provisions. But enforcement powers do not automatically become a licence to regulate everything that happens within an ESA. A Forest Department official may enforce an environmental prohibition contained in the notification. That does not necessarily mean the official acquires a general power over every activity, object or right within the ESA.

This distinction matters enormously in Kodagu.

ESA is an environmental designation. It is not a declaration that every acre within its boundary becomes Forest Department property or Forest Department jurisdiction for every conceivable purpose.

Indeed, the 7th Draft itself says: “The provisions of this notification shall not affect the ownership of the property in the Ecologically Sensitive Area.” It also states that – “there will be no displacement or dislocation of the local people living in habitations within the Ecologically Sensitive Areas demarcated in the Western Ghats and practicing of agriculture and plantation activity shall also not be affected due to the provisions contained in the draft notification;“

A privately owned coffee plantation does not cease to be private property merely because it falls within ESA. And ESA status, by itself, does not appear to give a Forest official unlimited authority over the lawful possession of property on that land.

Could a Forest Officer simply say: “ESA means no guns”?

This is where the legal argument becomes straightforward. If a Kodava covered by the Central Government’s Section 41 exemption were told: “You cannot possess this firearm because your property is inside ESA,”  the obvious question would be: Which provision of the ESA notification prohibits it?

If there is no such provision, another question follows: Under which statute has the officer obtained the authority to impose that restriction?

The mere words “Ecologically Sensitive Area” cannot themselves answer that question. A restriction on a legal right or exemption ordinarily requires a legal source for that restriction. The Forest Department cannot simply create a new firearms offence by interpretation.

But there is a crucial catch – The Wildlife Sanctuaries

This does not mean that a Kodava can carry a firearm anywhere in Kodagu simply because he is allowed to do so under the Arms Act exemption. There is a completely separate legal regime governing Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks.

And this is where the distinction between ESA and Protected Areas (PAs) becomes critical.

Section 31 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 provides that a person cannot enter a sanctuary with a weapon without the previous written permission of the Chief Wildlife Warden or authorised officer. That restriction arises because the location is a Wildlife Sanctuary. It does not arise because the location is an ESA.

Wildlife Sanctuary plus weapon = separate statutory restrictions. The same principle applies to National Parks, where the Wildlife (Protection) Act creates a separate Protected-Area regime.

An extraordinary detail in the Wildlife Act

There is another provision that deserves attention. Section 34 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act specifically deals with people possessing arms in or around a sanctuary.

Section 34(1) of Wildlife Protection Act says that a person residing in or within 10 km of a sanctuary, who holds an Arms Act licence or is exempt from the Arms Act and possesses arms, must apply to the Chief Wild Life Warden or the authorised officer for registration of his name.

In other words: The Wildlife Protection Act itself recognises the existence of people who are exempt from the Arms Act.

Section 34(3) of the Wildlife Protection Act also says: “No new licences under the Arms Act, 1959 … shall be granted within a radius of ten kilometres of a sanctuary without the prior concurrence of the Chief Wild Life Warden.”

The critical words are “No new licences under the Arms Act.” The sub-section does not say: “No new exemption certificates under the Arms Act.”

And Section 34(1) actually demonstrates that Parliament knew how to refer specifically to exempted persons. It requires a person living in or within 10 km of a sanctuary who is “exempted from the provisions of that Act and possessing arms” to register their name with the Chief Wild Life Warden or the authorised officer.

A licence can be renewed; an exemption does not necessarily work that way

Section 34(4) of the Wildlife Protection Act also says – No renewal of any licence under the Arms Act, 1959 (54 of 1959), shall be granted to any person residing within ten kilometres of a sanctuary except under the intimation to the Chief Wild Life Warden or the authorised officer.]

An licence under Arms Act is an authorisation issued for possessing/carrying a firearm. If its period expires, the person will have to apply for renewal of the licence.

The Coorg(Kodava) arrangement is different. The 2019 Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notification is an exemption under Section 41 of the Arms Act, exempting specified persons from specified provisions (Sections 3 and 4), subject to its conditions. The MHA itself describes the notification as an “Exemption” for persons of Coorg by race and Jumma tenure holders.

Section 34 of The Wild Life (Protection) Act, distinguishes between an Arms Act licence and an exemption from the Arms Act. Section 34(3) regulates the grant of a “new licence,” while Section 34(4) regulates the “renewal” of a licence. Neither provision expressly states that a Section 41 exemption must be renewed as an Arms Act licence or ceases to operate merely because its holder resides within 10 kilometres of a sanctuary. Section 34(1), in fact, expressly recognises persons exempted from the Arms Act and possessing arms.

Therefore, anyone claiming that: “Kodavas will not be allowed to hold guns or apply for new exemption if ESA comes to Kodagu”, should be asked a very simple question: “Under which law?”

If the answer is “ESA”, the next question should be: “Which clause of the ESA notification?”

That is where the issue needs to be examined. ESA does not override a Central Government notification by implication.

The Arms exemption is contained in a notification issued by the Union Government under Section 41 of the Arms Act. The Western Ghats ESA notification is issued under the Environment (Protection) Act. Neither the 7th Draft nor its regulatory provisions state that the Central Government’s Section 41 exemption is being withdrawn, modified or suspended within the ESA.

There is therefore no apparent basis for assuming that the ESA designation automatically cancels the exemption or offers forest departmant any licensing or regulatory authority. If the Government wanted to change the arms exemption, it has an established legal mechanism for doing so under the Arms Act.

ESA is not that mechanism. The danger is not necessarily what the notification says, but what may be claimed later.

This is perhaps the larger issue for Kodagu. Environmental regulations often involve multiple departments, permits, inspections and enforcement mechanisms.

Once a large geographical area is designated ESA, residents may encounter the Forest Department, Revenue Department, local authorities, and other regulatory agencies in connection with different activities. That makes it important to distinguish what the law actually says from what an individual official may believe the law permits.

But a Forest Department official cannot acquire powers merely because a map has changed. The source of the power must still be found in legislation, rules or a valid notification.

The debate over the Western Ghats ESA should therefore not be reduced to whether ESA is “good” or “bad” for Kodagu. There is a more basic question: What powers does the notification actually create?

As far as arms are concerned, the ESA notification contains no firearms prohibition.

If someone claims otherwise, the issue should not be settled by assumption, departmental interpretation, or verbal instruction. The question should be put on record: Where? Show us the provision in the law of the land.

Because this concerns a long-standing Central Government exemption, and because I understand that the possession of arms is not merely a legal matter but a deeply religious, cultural and emotive issue for the Kodavas – the point cannot be brushed aside.

The power to restrict a right protected by law must come from the law itself – not simply from the declaration of an Ecologically Sensitive Area.

Postscript:

There has been a huge amount of “noise” and possibly excessive concern on the recent announcement of ESA by The Union Environment Ministry, who recently issued the seventh draft notification delineating the Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) falling within the Western Ghats. Misinformation about the nature of restrictions has been spread among villagers. The ESA restricts activity within the Western Ghats to preserve its biodiversity and geological integrity in the face of rising human activity. But even as experts argue the urgent need to finally notify the ESA, states have been unable to reach a consensus about which areas the notification should cover.

The inability to finalise the ESA boundaries has persisted since 2011, when they were first proposed by a committee led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil. “When the catchment area of rivers is surrounded by natural vegetation, rivers remain perennial. Considering rising water scarcity in the region, preserving this source is critical,” Indian Institute of Science who have studied the ecological value of the Western Ghats. “Villages in the vicinity of natural forests enjoyed double the yield compared to other landscapes, so there is an economic value to this preservation too.”

The Gadgil committee report, considered a landmark report advocating the protection of the region, had recommended the entire 1,29,037 square kilometres of the Western Ghats come under the ESA, with different ESA zones signifying different levels of protection. The Kasturirangan report shifted the ESA’s focus to protecting the remaining natural landscapes in the Western Ghats.  It recommended the ESA  be limited to 37% of the region’s natural landscape, covering 59,940 sq km, based on geospatial analyses.

The Western Ghats stretch from the Tapti river valley in the Gujarat-Maharashtra border down across 1,500 kilometres south to Kanyakumari, crossing Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu along the way. This region is considered one of the world’s top eight biodiversity hotspots hosting more than 7,000 species of flora and fauna. It is also extremely landslide prone, necessitating “special measures of protection and mitigation,” the draft notification says.

The latest ESA draft notification covers 56,825 square kilometres, largely retaining the area of its predecessor. Apart from banning mining, sand mining, quarrying, thermal power plants, and red category industries, the notification restricts the construction of built up areas to 20,000 square metres, and townships to an area of 50 hectares with a built up area of 1,50,000 square metres.

In Kerala, Francis George, a Member of Parliament from the Kerala Congress, called the ESA notification unacceptable because it “failed to accommodate Kerala’s long-standing demand that human habitations, plantations and agricultural lands be completely excluded from the proposed ESA.” On the other hand, officials maintain that there is a broad acceptance of the ESA notification in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu.

This discussion is of great significance as the risks posed by fragmentation and unchecked development in the Western Ghats, including more frequent landslides is real. Apparently Evergreen forest cover over the Ghats had reduced from 16% in 1985 to 11% in 2018, while built up areas increased by 4.5% and agriculture by 9%.

At the end of the day, without regulation the sale of land (mainly Jamma), development of resorts/real estate projects and blatant commercial activity has been on the rise. In Kodagu the construction of Luxury Resorts has been rampant and one wonders how the Licences or clearances were obtained.

Another very important point is that when we spoke to senior advocates, they were emphatic that the Kodavas Arms Exemption would be at risk in the ESA zones. Furthermore, the powerful Virajpet MLA could easily seek clarification with the concerned authorities given the clout that he brings to bear with his legal background.

Please go through and share your views on the CLN Online platform. – CLN Newsdesk.

The facts, views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Coffeeland News.

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