Under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, who shall be the authority to initiate the process for determining the nature and extent of individual or community forest rights or both?

Answer: (d) Gram Sabha

The Gram Sabha starts the process of deciding the nature and extent of forest rights (Section 6).

The idea

Who knows which family has farmed which forest plot for generations? The village does, not a distant office. So the Act makes the gram sabha the first authority, and officials come in only to check and approve.

Gram sabha calls for claims and verifies them → Passes a resolution → Sub-Divisional Level Committee examines it → District Level Committee gives the final decision

Why the others are wrong

(b) The district committee gives the final decision, but does not start it.

(c) The sub-divisional committee examines claims — it does not start the process.

The trap

Officials sound like the natural starting point. The FRA puts the Gram Sabha first.

Also know

In the Niyamgiri case (2013) the Supreme Court asked the gram sabhas of the Dongria Kondh in Odisha to decide whether bauxite mining would affect their religious and cultural rights; all of them said no to mining. The gram sabha is also central under PESA, 1996 in Fifth Schedule areas.