India, Jan. 27 -- A Right To Information (RTI) query has revealed that the Madhya Pradesh government will withdraw criminal forest offences in less than half of the 8,000 cases that it promised.

The government had announced a withdrawal of criminal forest cases against people from Scheduled Tribes within a span of three months in May last year.

However, an RTI query filed in November last year by the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project (CPA), a litigation, research and capacity-building intervention organisation that works to address criminalisation of marginalised communities, found otherwise.

It found that limited cases pending in the various magisterial courts of Madhya Pradesh, meeting specific parameters underlined ...