Scrapping of Roshni Act: After J&K cites urgency, HC fixes Dec 11 to hear review plea

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Written by Arun Sharma
| Jammu |

December 9, 2020 1:05:33 am


The outstanding instances investigated by the ACB embody the 2009 Gulmarg land rip-off during which former IAS officer Baseer Khan, current Advisor to J&Okay Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, has been named as an accused together with 19 others.

A DAY after it fastened December 16 to hear the UT authorities’s petition searching for review of its October 9 judgment scrapping the 2001 J&Okay State Land (Vesting of Ownership to Occupants) Act or Roshni Act – main to cancellation of all switch of state land to non-public people underneath the legislation – the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Tuesday introduced ahead the date of listening to to December 11 after the administration cited urgency.

The CBI is at present investigating into irregularities within the land transfers made underneath the legislation.

On Tuesday, Additional Advocate General Aseem Sawhney, by way of an pressing listening to movement, advised the division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajesh Bindal that the matter wanted pressing court docket intervention as poor and landless individuals who had additionally benefited underneath the Act will probably be going through the warmth together with rich and influential individuals.

“We are implementing the Roshni judgment and there is absolutely no issue with regard to that, but at the same time there is disquiet among the masses… poor and landless people. Agriculturalists having one marla or five marla or one kanal land, even they are going to feel the heat. We want to segregate them from the sharks… There are big sharks, influential people, big businessmen, bureaucrats, police officers and politicians, we want to segregate them from the common man,” he advised the court docket.

Responding to administration plea that it doesn’t need to “unsettle the settled” and so it could be allowed to lay down a coverage differentiating the poor and landless from the influential and wealthy occupants of state land, the bench mentioned: “Who has stopped you…. We have not restrained anybody… There is no stay order.” Sawhney then mentioned the federal government doesn’t need to be seen as attempting to bypass the route of the judgment or attempting to mellow it down, for which it wanted listening to of the review petition on the earliest.

He mentioned the CBI ought to begin probing the large encroachers first and never reinvestigate instances already probed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, which beforehand dealt with the matter. “The ACB has already finished with certain investigations and certain challans are pending. The CBI should not unearth or reinvestigate those matters. The CBI should not start from A to B, but from the big encroachers. It should not be like that first catch hold of the ACB and it may happen that CBI, instead of investigating the encroachers, start proceeding against our officials. There is fear psychosis among the masses and also among the revenue people.”

Fixing the federal government’s review petition and a PIL filed by Prof S Okay Bhalla for listening to on December 11, the bench, nevertheless, mentioned, “We don’t want lopsided investigations and it ought to be honest… We don’t want discrimination of any variety within the title of faith, area, cultural and standing.’’ It requested the CBI to file an motion taken report in a sealed cowl on the subsequent date of listening to.

This adopted a submission by advocate Sheikh Shakeel, counsel for Bhalla, who mentioned there was “selective targeting” after the court docket’s October 9 judgment, including {that a} narrative was being constructed opposite to the details to goal a specific neighborhood and the media was getting used to foster the false narrative. The PIL sought structure of a particular investigation group to examine the instances of encroachment of state and forest land by bureaucrats and politicians and their subsequent prosecution.

The outstanding instances investigated by the ACB embody the 2009 Gulmarg land rip-off during which former IAS officer Baseer Khan, current Advisor to J&Okay Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, has been named as an accused together with 19 others.

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