Expressing grave concern over the malaise of land grabbing even reaching remote villages of the country, the Supreme Court in an unprecedented order has sought detailed report form chief secretaries of the states and Union Territories about vanishing of vast chunk of “gram sabha” lands considered a common property of the village inhabitants for centuries.
“We give direction to all the state governments in the country that they should prepare schemes for eviction of illegal/unauthorised occupants of gram sabha/gram panchayat/poramboke/shamlat land and these must be restored to gram sabha or gram panchayats for common use of the villagers of a village,” a bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra ordered.
To ensure this, the chief secretaries would take the help from the senior officers of the revenue department and other departments concerned, the court said while permitting the states to issue show cause notice to all encroachers of the common land and demolish any construction on such plots.
“Long duration of such illegal occupation or huge expenditure in making construction thereon or political connections must not be treated as a justification for condoning the illegal act or for regularising the illegal possession,” the apex court said. It, however, made certain exceptions with regard to allotment of common gram sabha land for public utility services like schools, dispensaries, anganwadis, and allotment to poor and landless labourers or members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the government’s special land allotment schemes to the people belonging to these categories.
The chief secretaries were directed by the bench to submit compliance reports from time to time.
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SC will not intervene in mining probe
age correspondent
New Delhi
Jan. 31: In another setback to Karnataka’s powerful Reddy brothers on the alleged illegal mining by their company in Obulapuram area, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere in the CBI investigation.
A bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapaida and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar during a short hearing told the counsel for Reddy brothers’ Obulapuram Mining Company that the Andhra Pradesh high court had passed a reasoned order on their plea about CBI investigation, which was on.