Madhya Pradesh: 'Ghosts' offer thumb impressions to give away tribal land

Sonmati (28) and fellow villager Somaru Singh travelled to New Delhi in November 2025 to tell the media that tribals were being forcibly evicted from their ancestral land in Madhya Pradesh without the mandatory consent of the gram sabha.

"This is our third generation living in the same village. The government and an Adani-linked company are trying to take our land for their coal project. They are using money and muscle power to intimidate, manipulate and forge documents," said Sonmati from Basi Berdaha village in Singrauli.

The two travelled to the national capital again in February to apprise Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi of the alleged forcible eviction of tribals. When they returned, they were surprised to learn that thumb impressions purportedly belonging to them appeared against their names on a document indicating that they had consented to hand over their land.

They obtained the document after filing an RTI application and discovered that the thumb impressions of not only the two of them but also six deceased villagers had appeared on the alleged consent form.

What was even more shocking, they said, was that the alleged consent of 350 villagers had been obtained as far back as November 2021 to hand over 2,672 hectares of land for the Adani Group's newly acquired Dhirauli coal mine.

Documents accessed through RTI and seen by National Herald show that Brij Bhan Singh, Jag Bandhan Singh Gond and Phooleshwari Singh — all of whom had died between 2014 and 2018 — had supposedly affixed their thumb impressions in 2021. Similarly, Nandlal Singh Khairwar, Chand Singh and Shukwariya Singh Khairwar, who had died between 2014 and 2017, also appeared to have 'returned' in 2021 to put their thumb impressions on the documents.

The properties of the deceased had yet to be formally transferred to their heirs and, according to the allegations, officials struggling to obtain the villagers' consent took the easy way out by showing the dead as alive. Problem solved?

Adivasi Congress chief Vikrant Bhuria alleged that large tracts of land in Singrauli had been fraudulently acquired by the state government by tampering with gram sabha records. "After vote chori (theft), exam paper chori and chanda chori, the BJP government is now resorting to angootha chori," Bhuria quipped.

Displaying RTI documents and death certificates, Bhuria alleged that many literate villagers, who ordinarily signed documents, were instead shown as having given thumb impressions — a sign, he claimed, of brazen manipulation. He alleged that officials had violated the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), under which the consent of a gram sabha is mandatory in Scheduled Areas before land can be acquired or forest land diverted.

"This is forgery. No gram sabha was held in any of the three panchayats. Villagers' thumb impressions and signatures were collected fraudulently and misused to manufacture consent. How could six people who died years before 2021 have appeared to affix their thumb impressions?" asked Somaru Singh, who has filed a police complaint alleging that the thumb impression shown as his was forged.

At the heart of the controversy is the alleged bypassing of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which mandates fair compensation, gram sabha consent, and special rehabilitation provisions for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes. Instead, the government invoked the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957, which provides far weaker safeguards for affected communities.

Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Umang Singhar has also alleged serious anomalies in the distribution of compensation, claiming that money meant for tribal landowners was paid to people with no ownership stake.

"For instance, Rs 15.94 lakh was paid to Priyanka Singh, wife of Sarai police station in-charge Jitendra Bhadauria, who was responsible for providing security to Adani. Similarly, Rs 14.83 lakh was paid to Swati Singh, wife of traffic in-charge Deependra Singh Kushwah," Singhar alleged in the Assembly.

He demanded that mining operations be halted until all compensation-related disputes were thoroughly investigated and resolved.

While the Union coal ministry informed Parliament in 2023 that the Dhirauli coal block fell under the Fifth Schedule and therefore enjoyed constitutional protections because of its significant tribal population and distinct socio-cultural character, the Madhya Pradesh government told the Assembly two years later that the area did not fall under the Fifth Schedule.

The Opposition has alleged that the state government manipulated land and revenue records to remove the area's Fifth Schedule protection and facilitate faster, hassle-free land acquisition.

Bhuria has demanded a CBI investigation into the alleged fraud, action against the officials and companies involved, and an immediate halt to mining activities until the allegations are independently verified.

Neither the company nor the government has issued a statement on the allegations.