Excelsior Correspondent
POONCH, Dec 2: In a major development and rare case of its kind, illegal mutation of nearly 221 kanals of forest land by some Revenue officials, in possession of five land grabbers has been cancelled by the Deputy Commissioner, Poonch, Rahul Yadav.
The step regarding provision of standing order 23-A Mutation, illegal mutation on exempted land have been treated null & void by the District Collector on the recommendation of Divisional Forest Officer, Poonch, Mohan Choudhary. The DFO was persistently contesting the case with retard to illegal encroachment on huge forest land by some land grabbers, who managed illegal entries in the Revenue record by influencing Patwaris and some other Revenue officials.
Official sources revealed that in the five cases, illegally mutated area measuring 221 kanals on forest land has been cancelled and recorded in favor of Forest Department.
Since 2012-13, Poonch Division office was pursuing most of these cases in Revenue courts and currently these appeals have been withdrawn from Revenue courts and pursued for treating these illegal mutation as void under provision to avoid any delay due to appeal procedure, as such Forest Department has no procedure to appeal under Forest Act.
36 kanal area has already been evicted and fenced and rest area will be evicted from encroachers soon, a forest official said.
The people who had grabbed these pieces of land in district Poonch were identified as Mohd Azad Khan- 36 kanal, resident of Nar in Mendhar; Mohd Hussain from Samote (40 kanal, 14 Marla), Mohd Azam, son of Lal Din from Galutta 41 kanals, Iqbal Hussain from Kanuiyan -15 kanals and Mamda and Habiba from Loran 57 kanals and 2 Marla. The land in possession of Mohd Azad from Nar has been retrieved and fenced properly while eviction notices have been issued to Habiba and Mamda hailing from Battlekote in Loran for clearing 57 kanals of forest land. Final action is likely to be taken in this regard shortly, the official added.
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