Cases of illegal mutations being referred to ACB
*Facilitators of illegalities to face stern action
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 1: Jammu District Administration has detected and subsequently cancelled illegal entries of nearly 15,000 kanals of Government land in just five tehsils that too in a short span of 15 days. Moreover, over 300 kanals of land has been escheated to the Government with the cancellation of illegal mutations.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the practice of carrying out illegal entries of the prime Government land in the revenue records to favour private persons was going on uninterruptedly during the past several decades.
“Despite being aware of the illegalities being committed right under their nose, those who remained at the helm of affairs in the Revenue Department from time to time never bothered to initiate steps either to bring an end to this practice or to clean the revenue records mainly because of the political pressure”, they further said.
Recently, the Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu decided to launch a vigorous drive to check this illegality and to ensure that entire revenue record of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is made transparent.
Accordingly, the issue was thoroughly discussed in numerous meetings of the Committee of Secretaries headed by the Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam and necessary directions were passed to the Principal Secretary to Government, Revenue Department and Financial Commissioner Revenue.
Acting on the directions of the Lieutenant Governor and Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary, Revenue Department Dr Pawan Kotwal, got action plan prepared for each district of the Union Territory by the respective Deputy Commissioners and progress on the same is being regularly monitored by him as well as Divisional Commissioners.
No doubt, there are illegal entries of huge chunk of Government land in all the districts of Jammu and Kashmir but in Jammu and Srinagar the volume is beyond imagination because of enormous cost of the land. This can be gauged from the figures, which came to the fore during the exercise conducted in just five tehsils of Jammu by the District Administration.
As per the figures available with EXCELSIOR, illegal entries of private persons vis-a-vis 4945 kanals and 12 marlas of forest land have been cancelled in only Sunjwan village of Bahu tehsil vide Order No.DCJ/SQ/4454-57 dated February 15. Similarly, vide Order No.DCJ/SQ-SL/2019-20/4606-09 dated February 25, illegal entries of private persons on 2892 kanals and 8 marlas of State land in different villages of Marh tehsil have been cancelled.
Moreover, vide Order No.DCJ/SQ/SL/4632-36 dated February 25, illegal entries vis-a-vis 1681 kanals and 5 marlas of Government land in different villages of Dansal tehsil have been cancelled. Likewise, vide Order No.DCJ/SQ/4645-49 dated February 27, illegal entries vis-a-vis 2849 kanals and 6 marlas have been cancelled in different villages of Nagrota tehsil.
Again, vide order dated February 28, illegal entries vis-a-vis State land measuring 2349 kanals and 12 marlas in different villages of Akhnoor tehsil have been cancelled. In this way, illegalities committed in respect of nearly 15,000 kanals of land have been rectified.
“The figure would jump considerable in the coming days as 16 more tehsils of Jammu district are yet to be covered under the special drive”, sources said while disclosing that even illegal mutations have also been cancelled in respect of huge chunk of Government land in the five tehsils, which have already been covered.
They further said, “by way of cancellation of mutations attested in favour of different private persons, who were never entitled to get the ownership rights under different Government orders such as Roshni Act, LB6/C and S-432, more than 300 kanals of land has been escheated to the Government”.
“Though identification of officials who either turned blind eye or facilitated these illegal entries is a lengthy exercise yet the Government has decided to refer the cases of illegal mutations of Government land to the Anti-Corruption Bureau for criminal proceedings against the concerned officials”, sources said while disclosing that process of referring such cases to the ACB has already been started.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
