108-acre village common land encroached upon

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, March 18

The district administration has failed to restore 108 acres of pasture land in the revenue records to the Saleena village panchayat in the district, a major portion of which has been “sold” to influential persons from time to time in the past 65 years.

As per the Wajib-ul-Arj and consolidation scheme, the pasture land must have been entered in the revenue records in the name of the village panchayat because a group of local residents had left it for common purpose of cattle grazing after the consolidation in 1953 when this land was declared surplus by the government. At the time of the consolidation, it was agreed by the co-owners of “Patti Sareen” of the village that 862 kanals 16 marlas (108 acre) of land should be kept apart as “charand” (cattle grazing) for common purpose and accordingly the Wajib-ul-Arj was made for the village.

As per the 1956 revenue record, though the names of the owners of the land remained as various co-owners but in the column of possession it was described as “charand”. The residents of the village at that time agreed that no part of the land would be sold by anyone.

However, in the past few decades some “powerful and influential” persons have allegedly illegally occupied the entire stretch of 108 acres of the pasture land for farming.

Ajay Sood, a local farmer, whose father had also left a few acres of land for “charand”, filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court a couple of years back seeking directions to restore the common land to thye village panchayat. The court asked the deputy commissioner to look into the matter, but the administration in a magisterial probe maintained that the ownership rights of the disputed land were not transferred to the panchayat, therefore it could not be considered as a common land.

Last year, Sood filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking appropriate directions to the district administration to correct the revenue record. The court asked the plaintiff to approach the deputy commissioner, who would decide his representation as per the law. He filed an application before the deputy commissioner a few months back, but nothing has been done so far.

Interestingly, in 2012, Ranbir Singh Mudhal, the then District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), who had the power of Collector for common lands, in his report found that successive block development and panchayat officers (BDPOs) of Moga-II block failed to protect 108 acres of common land (grazing land) of the village, a major portion of which had been sold to influential persons from time to time in the past 65 years. They failed to transfer the ownership rights of the land to the panchayat, which led to encroachments.

The DDPO forwarded his report to the director of the Panchayat Department demanding departmental action against the successive BDPOs for their negligence and also suggested legal intervention to protect the panchayat property, but no action has been taken by it so far. Meanwhile, the village panchayat has also passed a resolution demanding from the deputy commissioner to restore the proprietary rights of the common land to the village panchayat as per the Wajib-ul-Arj and remove the encroachments so that the vast stretch of land could be used for common purpose.