Slackness of Revenue Deptt responsible for prevailing situation
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 12: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Kumar today issued directions for exploring possibilities to acquire land to restore the original area of Gharana wetland as prevailing situation doesn’t permit further slackness in conservation of world famous water body.
When the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) titled Rattan Singh Versus State of J&K and Others and application filed by villagers of Gharana came up for hearing, Additional Advocate General Rohit Kapoor submitted that some vital record pertaining to Gharana wetland has been collected and analysis of the same reveals that not much was done to prevent encroachment of the water body.
He threw the attention of the Division Bench towards a vital communication of Wildlife Warden Jammu on the subject and the affidavit filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) wherein light has been thrown on communications between Wildlife Department and functionaries of the Revenue Department but without any fruitful results.
On this, Chief Justice, in the open court, asked, “why don’t you explore the possibilities to acquire the land for proper preservation of Gharana wetland”, adding “this is the only way to settle the grave issue once for all”.
Additional Advocate General Rohit Kapoor immediately responded: “we will initiate necessary exercise in this regard”.
Senior Advocate M K Bhardwaj along with Advocate Karan Sharma appearing for the PIL also supported this and said, “acquisition of land is the only viable option for restoration of original area of world famous wetland”, adding “it would be only after this exercise that the Wildlife Department will be in a position to take necessary steps in the direction of conservation”.
Senior Advocate P N Raina, who was appearing for the villagers of Gharana, said, “the villagers are in the possession of land for decades together and should be given alternate agriculture land at suitable place in lieu of the land to be acquired for restoring the original area of the wetland”.
Finally, the Division Bench, in the open court, directed that State should explore the possibilities for acquiring land to restore the original area of Gharana wetland. “The prevailing situation doesn’t permit further slackness in conservation of world famous water body”, the DB said while stressing that there should be proper coordination between all the concerned agencies on this aspect.
Keeping in view the importance of the PIL, the DB directed the Registry to list the same for further hearing on next Tuesday.
As per the communications referred to during the course of hearing today, total area of the Gharana wetland was 1500 kanals including the catchment area. However, in the year 2009 the same was found only 213 kanals and 14 marlas.
Of this, only 97 kanals area could be demarcated during the exercise carried out on the directions of the Division Bench recently. Out of 97 kanals, some area is reportedly under encroachment. Moreover, some portion of State land, which also forms part of the original area of the water body, was encroached during these years.
While exploring the possibilities to acquire land, the State will have to suggest the plans for removal of encroachments without which original area of the wetland cannot be restored, sources said, adding any step towards conservation of this water body depends upon proper coordination between the Wildlife and Revenue Departments, which has not been seen till date and is mainly responsible for shrinking of wetland.
The documents placed before the Division Bench clearly established that numerous communications were exchanged between Revenue Department and Wildlife Department during all these years on the issue of demarcation of the wetland but due to slackness of the Revenue authorities there was no fruitful result. “Even committees and teams were constituted a number of times but the outcome was zero as if preservation of wetland was nobody’s concern”, sources said.
“Most shocking aspect is that intervention from the office of Divisional Commissioner too failed to yield the desired results”, sources said while pointing towards the formulation of team of revenue officers in the month of June 2014 on the directions of the then Divisional Commissioner.
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