Indian tribe residents accuse forgery of signatures to take land for Adani mining project

Koraput, India – Raghunath Khara said he was stunned when he saw his fingerprint on a document stating that he had agreed to let the authorities mine his village's pristine forest land for bauxite. The man, a seller in Balda village in Koraput district, Odisha state, insists he never put his thumbprint on that document and always signs in English.

Khara is among hundreds of Indigenous tribal people in Balda and the neighboring village of Bannur who accuse the new bauxite mining project of taking their land. The project is being developed by Kalinga Alumina Limited – a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, a conglomerate owned by billionaire Gautam Adani. The $24m project will occupy a large part of Balda hill, which contains forests, grasslands and caves considered sacred by residents of at least 10 nearby tribal villages.

According to the allegations, to push the project forward, the signatures and fingerprints of nearly 600 tribal people were collected at village council meetings in Balda and Bannur on October 9 last year. Bannur is 5km from Balda. Khara said he did not attend the meeting in Balda but instead protested against the mine with his wife, sister and other residents about 100 meters from the village council office. “That fingerprint is fake. We did not attend the village meeting. We were all busy protesting outside,” he told Al Jazeera.

India's Constitution recognizes the rights of Indigenous communities to their traditional lands. Forest laws and laws granting autonomy to tribal areas require village council resolutions for any land-use conversion. A resolution is valid only if at least 50 percent of the village's adults agree in writing. Government documents claim that all 580 adults – 360 in Balda and 227 in Bannur – agreed to give up land for the Adani mine. But the elected heads of the village councils in both villages deny collecting the signatures and call the two meetings “invalid”.

Photos taken by villagers at the two meetings show total attendance of only about 100 – nearly 40 in Balda and 68 in Bannur – far below the minimum 50 percent needed to pass a valid resolution. Residents also allege that most signatures on the resolution documents are forged, fabricated or impersonated. They say the documents bear the signatures of people who do not exist, even names of people who died years earlier. Some say their signatures from an unrelated village council meeting were pasted onto the bauxite mine document.

Al Jazeera said it emailed the Adani group and its communications head on August 18 seeking comment on the allegations of forgery and fraud, then sent a second request on September 25 but received no reply. It also sought comment from Manoj Satyawan Mahajan, the district judge – the highest-ranking official in Koraput – about residents' concerns, and from Rohit Varma, Koraput district police chief, but received no response.

‘They took the paper out of my hand’

Many meeting attendees said they opposed the mining project. Madhav Kuntili, a farmer in Bannur, said they were told that if the mine were allowed to operate, the village would get roads, jobs, drainage, water connections and a school. Koraput is one of India's least developed districts, so such promises often carry weight. Kuntili said a document was passed around to collect signatures; when he said he would not sign if the forest were converted, they took the paper away.

In Balda and Bannur, Al Jazeera met many residents stunned to see their signatures or fingerprints on the resolution. Rama Hantal, 60, lies motionless by the door of a rusted tin-and-wood hut. He has been paralyzed for years and cannot speak. His daughter-in-law Chandrama Hantal insists he could not have attended the meeting or signed. Meanwhile, Hantal's name appears on the consent form in Odia, the state's official language, while Chandrama's name has a fingerprint next to it; she also denies attending the meeting.

Among the signatories are three people named Gurubari Khara whose fingerprints are said to support the mining project. In Balda, villagers could identify only two “Gurubari”: one living 3km away who denies attending the meeting, and one in the village who died before the meeting. The deceased woman's son, Sahdev, said his mother died in February 2025, nearly 75 years old, and asked how they could have faked her presence and signature eight months later. Two others in the first Gurubari's family were also listed as signatories – her husband, who was bedridden after a tree fall three months before the meeting, and a grandson – both deny attending the October 9 meeting. The third Gurubari has not yet been identified.

Al Jazeera said it interviewed more than 20 people and accessed records from both villages but could not verify at least 67 people listed as signatories in the resolution. In Bannur, at least three dead people were represented by fingerprints; the families of all three – also listed as consenting – confirmed their relatives had died. Nakul Alang, 35, son of Sanai Alang, who is listed at number 108 in the Bannur resolution, said his mother died four years ago. Nakul's signature is in Odia, but he says he was working at a construction site in Visakhapatnam, a coastal city in neighboring Andhra Pradesh state, 170km from Koraput. “I don't know who wrote our names and signatures,” he said.

Hasty meetings, alleged ‘fraud’

On page 10 of the 16-page Bannur resolution document, 13 names are written in the same handwriting, beside a neat row of fingerprints. When Sunadhar Muduli, a 50-year-old farmer, saw the paper, he immediately recognized it as his own handwriting. “But none of us ever attended the Gram Sabha meeting,” he said.

Muduli said Ramnath Pungi, a contractor for the local tax office, came to the village in December and gave him a register, asking him to fill in the names of residents who wanted government recognition of their traditional land. Many tribal communities have long been excluded from land records, farming “state-owned” land across generations; it is not uncommon in the region for contractors to be sent to collect information about farmers.

According to Muduli, Pungi said everyone's signatures were needed. He offered to gather the villagers but Pungi said it was not necessary and that he could sign on their behalf. Muduli then called some residents to ask permission, “wrote their names on one side of the page and the two of them took turns putting their thumbprints next to the names”. He said it was Pungi's idea and he was only following instructions. It was not until June, when Al Jazeera came to Bannur, that Muduli saw that paper had been included in the draft resolution on the mine.

Pungi also confirmed to Al Jazeera that the signatures were collected for a different purpose. “I was paid 3,000 rupees to collect documents and sign land settlement papers for each village. I only submitted the signed paper to the tax office. I did not know they would use it for this. I also oppose mining in the region,” he said.

According to official guidelines, notice of a Gram Sabha meeting must be given two weeks before the meeting date to ensure sufficient attendance. However, many residents said the notice was posted outside the village council office on October 8, only one day before the meeting; the notices Al Jazeera accessed were dated September 22 and 23, 2025.

Mine approval said to be ‘unusually hasty’

Odisha state authorities are said to have pushed the Adani mining project through hastily. In February 2023, Odisha declared Adani Enterprises the preferred bidder for the mine in Koraput, immediately drawing opposition from tribal people in Balda and Bannur. They marched to local government offices to protest the mining of 157ha of forest land, tree felling and displacement of residents.

Two years later, on March 6, 2025, state authorities held a public hearing – a mandatory consultation procedure in which villagers are given project information and objections are officially recorded. Most villagers expressed opposition to the project. Despite the opposition, environmental clearance – the key approval following ecological impact assessment – was granted a few months later.

Under Indian law, communities that have long lived in forests but were excluded from land ownership can claim individual or community rights over traditional forest land. Balda and neighboring communities applied for rights over 2,500ha of forest land in 2025; much of that area overlaps with the mining lease area. Normally, resolving claims involves compiling records, local authority approval, official verification and time to appeal if modified or rejected; the process is usually very slow.

In January, authorities “settled” the community rights claims without notifying the village council. Less than one-fifth of the requested area was recognized, while the entire mining area was excluded from the claims. Villagers are usually given time to appeal, but in this case, two appeal committees confirmed the decision within three days, not even giving villagers time to file, according to residents' allegations.

Ajaya Muduli is one of three people authorized by the affected villages to approach Indian courts, sign documents, take legal steps and work with government committees in the fight to stop the land grab. He said the land acquisition process was “unusually hasty” and that residents had protected this sacred land for centuries but were not consulted. “This is a clear tactic to impose the mine on us without consent, while stripping us of our rights,” he told Al Jazeera.

Immediately after the October 9 Gram Sabha meetings, villagers wrote to local authorities asking for them to be reconvened, citing the hasty nature and the village head's declaration that the meetings were “invalid”. However, by October 15, the allegedly forged resolutions had been entered into official records; it was not until February 11 this year that the documents were published on the environment ministry's website.

To date, more than 50 people from various villages in Koraput have filed sworn statements affirming they did not attend the village council meetings and that their signatures or fingerprints were forged. They have also filed petitions with courts and district authorities, along with police complaints alleging forgery, demanding an investigation into the land transfer for the Adani mine. In March, 10 affected villages around Balda hill held meetings rejecting the earlier village council resolutions and reaffirming their opposition to the bauxite mine.

In May, Muduli approached the court on behalf of the villagers, but it was too late. On May 7, all necessary approvals were granted to Kalinga Alumina Limited and the forest land was handed over to the $24m bauxite mining project, along with a related alumina refinery, under a 50-year lease. No compensation was promised to the villagers.

Rajendra Khara, a Balda resident, told Al Jazeera: “What they did is illegal, but we will not back down.” Although approvals have been granted, actual work has not yet begun. Villagers say they will block construction. “No matter what happens, we will never hand it over to Adani. This is our ancestral land,” he said.

‘A worrying trend’

Arpitha Kodiveri, an assistant professor of political science at Vassar College in the US who studies environmental law and justice related to mining in India, told Al Jazeera that ignoring landowner consent sets a precedent for illegal practice. She said the concern is that it has become an illegal administrative practice to enforce consent rules without following procedure and law. According to her, the alleged irregularities in the consent process could be grounds for affected parties to challenge government approvals; regulations also need to spell out consequences for improper consent and require accountability when mandatory provisions are ignored. “Guidelines need to be established so this process is carried out in spirit, not just on paper, and to signal that there are consequences for forging signatures or collecting signatures of dead people. This has happened too many times in Odisha and elsewhere, forming a very worrying trend,” she said.

Land Conflict Watch, a research organization based in New Delhi, said it has tracked at least 28 “conflict” cases involving consent from mining, afforestation, energy and other infrastructure projects in India since 2003. It also found allegations of forgery, avoidance of mandatory public consultation and forced acquisition of ancestral land when studying those conflicts.

Government studies also show a similar trend. A 2024 report by India's Comptroller and Auditor General on land management in tribal areas found 136 consent violations in mining and other projects. In 73 cases, no Gram Sabha meeting was held; in another 29, land was acquired while ignoring the village council's opinion.

In recent years, allegations have emerged of outright forging of Gram Sabha resolutions. In 2023 in Sijimali, about 180km from Balda, villagers discovered similar forged consents and meetings for a bauxite mine of Vedanta Resources, India's largest mining company, owned by a London-headquartered group. At least eight villages denied consenting to the transfer of 708ha of forest land, although official documents said otherwise. Sijimali has seen near-continuous protests since then, escalating into violence in April when clashes between police and demonstrators injured 70 people.

Shomona Khanna, a Supreme Court lawyer specializing in environmental and tribal law, said: “If the Gram Sabha does not consent, the forest approval is illegal and must be quashed. They are mocking the law.” She said these are criminal offenses; anyone who deprives forest dwellers of their forest rights or obstructs the enjoyment of forest rights commits an offense, described as an atrocity under Indian law.

Back in Balda, villagers fear that if mining begins, the streams that feed their rice fields will dry up, and the forests that provide gourds, fruit, flowers, bark, firewood and medicinal plants will be affected. Like many Indigenous tribal communities, their animist faith is tied to the surrounding forest – home to small shrines, statues and sacred caves. Raghunath Hanthal, 70, a priest in Balda, said: “The forest is everything to us. Our goddess is here.” In official documents, his name is listed at number 171 with an Odia signature. “I did not even go to the meeting. We were here, protesting that day. Taking away the forest not only destroys livelihoods but also angers our goddess,” he said.