Serious attention needed

11/01/2018

Notwithstanding repeated directions from the highest court of the State, nearly 11 lakh kanals of State, Nazool and Evacuee Property (EP) land has remained under unauthorized occupation in the length and breadth of Jammu and Kashmir. This has clearly established that all the concerned Government agencies have virtually surrendered before the land mafia, which is allegedly enjoying the backing of influential politicians. On the basis of information furnished in the Legislative Assembly about five years back, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) came to be filed before the Division Bench of the State High Court and accordingly numerous directions were passed for retrieval of the encroached land in a time-bound manner. Finally, in the year 2016 both the Divisional Commissioners on the directions of the highest court of the State submitted in 13 volumes the district-wise encroachments and the list of encroachers. In the month of February last year, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Baseer Ahmed Khan and the then Divisional Commissioner Jammu DrPawanKotwal were personally called in the court and conveyed serious concerns over dilly-dallying approach in retrieval of land despite identification of encroachers.
However, despite clear directions from the High Court no seriousness was shown in retrieval of the encroached land and even Divisional Commissioners stopped exerting pressures on the concerned agencies in the districts for strictly implementing the court orders. This can be gauged from the fact that 9.53 lakh kanals of State and Nazool land and over one lakh kanals of Evacuee Property land is still under un-authorized occupation in all the districts of Kashmir valley and Jammu region. According to the information furnished by the Revenue Minister to MLA M Y Tarigami in the Legislative Assembly, 16,64,119kanals of State/Nazool land was under unauthorized occupation in the State. Moreover, 1,11,119kanals of EP land was also under the illegal possession of different persons. However, it has been claimed that 7,10,360kanals of State/Nazool land and 1422 kanals of EP land has been retrieved by the concerned agencies. This clearly indicates that 9,53,759 kanals of State/Nazool land and 1,09,697 kanals of EP land is still under the unauthorized occupation. However, it has not been revealed as to what steps are being taken to ensure retrieval of such a huge chunk of land in both the regions of the State strictly as per the directions of the High Court. The retrieval of land is only on the papers and on ground the land continues to be in the possession of unauthorized occupants.

Photo Gallery

BSE Sensex

NSE Nifty