In its edition dated April 13, 2014, the Daily Excelsior published the startling news about non demarcation of nearly 66,000 kanals of State and Nazool land by the Revenue Department. This amount of land was out of a total of 77124 kanals and 5 marlas of State and Nazool land transferred to JDA by virtue of Government Order dated January 28, 1973 followed by subsequent Government orders issued by the Revenue Department and under provisions of J&K State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001. Actually, only 7653 kanals and 17 marlas was procedurally handed over after authentic demarcation by the Revenue Department. The remaining 66436 kanals and one marla of land was transferred only on papers without any mandatory demarcation. It is surprising that such huge area of land in the districts of Jammu and Samba was transferred to the JDA without proper demarcation and identification. Why did the Revenue Department commit such irregularity is not understandable.
The way in which transfer of huge amount of land has taken place, meaning without proper demarcation to be followed by fencing etc. has given rise to land encroachment by the powerful land mafia of Jammu, which has close contacts with political and administrative circles so much so that their eviction has become a very serious issue. Despite the revelations made by us in these columns, Revenue authorities advertently ignored to take any step for effectively preventing the land mafia from illegal occupation of chunks of this land. Another question that demands a reply is why the JDA did not insist on demarcation. There seems something wrong somewhere, which one cannot precisely point out in this deal. Either there is a nexus between the Revenue Department and the JDA to leave the transferred land without demarcation and thus provide a chance to the land mafia to make capital out of it, or there is absolute inefficiency and irresponsibility on the part of the Revenue Department that has failed to perform its duty. Why did not higher authorities take serious note of the inefficiency and incompetence of Revenue Department in performing its duty? These questions will be raised if at all an impartial inquiry is ordered into the entire case. In a couple of editorials, we have said it in plain words that many high-ups in the civil society, politicians and public servants seem to be involved in this huge land scam. This nexus is so powerful that they are even trying to defy the orders of the Court to which the case has been brought by way of PIL.
Feeble as well as half-hearted attempts have been made by the Government to get the illegally encroached State or Nazool land vacated. This is explained by the fact that in a few instances whenever the official agencies came on the spot to vacate illegal possession, the land grabbers made strong resistance so much so that the police force had to vacate the site and abandon enforcing the orders. Obviously, defiance of the Government order is not possible without connivance of important official and political circles. However, our unrelenting efforts will continue to bring this scam to fore and force the Government to become accountable for the consequences. On the basis of the exclusive news-item that appeared in these columns, a Public Interest Litigation came to be filed in the State High Court seeking direction for prompt demarcation. In this PIL, the then Chief Justice of State High Court, Justice M M Kumar, while pulling up Revenue authorities, issued directions for time-bound demarcation of such a huge land. Accordingly, the Revenue Department issued schedule for demarcation of land. However, not much headway could be made mainly on the ground that Revenue officials were finding it difficult to spare time for this exercise from their routine activities. We are not convinced that shortage of revenue staff and stupendous nature of the task forbade the Revenue Department from completing the demarcation exercise of this land. We will repeat that there are forces behind the curtain that would not allow demarcation to be done. Nevertheless, the Government is seized with the directive from the High Court to finalize the demarcation of this land and, consequently, the Deputy Chief Minister, who is also incharge of Housing and Urban Development, has issued instructions that the Revenue Department should complete the demarcation work of this land in six months time. He has also authorized the District Commissioner Jammu to requisition on temporary basis the services of retired revenue officers like patwaris, girdawars and naib tehsildars against honorarium to assist the department in completing demarcation work within the time frame. We hope that induction of retired revenue officers will be helpful in completing the task. However, we would like to caution the Government that the land mafia in Jammu has spread it tentacles deep and wide in the polity and unless exemplary punishment is given to those who are obstructing the task of demarcation, induction of retired revenue staff may not be of much consequence.
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