Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, June 18: The High Court has observed that the Revenue authorities have not taken steps to save the state land by evicting the tenants from it and directed for conducting an in-depth enquiry with regard to different entries in revenue records.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar said that the petitioner and before him his ancestors should have been evicted from the subject land right in the year 1950 or at least when mutation in 1957 was attested.
Not taking the steps to correct the revenue records about the land in question resulted in occupation and possession of petitioner and his predecessors-in-interest continued to be in cultivating possession of the subject land as occupancy tenants.
It has also been brought to the notice of the court that the land in question has already been taken over by the Power Development Department and the construction of Receiving Station has been going on ever since.
The process of taking the possession of land for construction of the Receiving Station by the Power Development Department has been challenged by the petitioner-Prem Singh on the ground that the subject land is being forcibly taken over by the respondent-PDD without adopting any due process of law.
It is claimed that he is an occupancy tenant of the subject land and, therefore, is entitled to compensation. There is dispute of mutations as recorded in revenue records with regard to the said land, the court as such directed for full-fledged enquiry into the matter.
Court directed the Assistant Commissioner, Revenue and Tehsildar, concerned to conduct an in-depth enquiry in the matter and make recommendations to the Deputy Commissioner.
The Committee of these Revenue Officers entrusted with the job of holding enquiry have been directed to find out the reasons and circumstances under which the petitioner and his predecessors-in interest continued to remain in possession of the land even after attestation of mutation 1957.
“The Committee shall also find out as to how petitioner and his predecessors-in-interest remained in cultivating possession of the land when in terms of mutation No.272 of 1957 they had ceased, in law, to be the occupancy tenants”, Court directed.
The Committee has been further directed to find out as to why and how different entries in the tenancy column came to be made from time to time by the revenue officers and identify the officers responsible for the lapse.
The Committee in case finds no illegality in the matter or that to the error or omission committed by the revenue authorities and the petitioner was not in any manner contributory then court said, he shall be deemed to be the occupancy tenant and the Deputy Commissioner shall, accordingly, initiate action under the relevant provisions of Land Acquisition Law to work out permissible compensation payable to him as occupancy tenant by the PDD.
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