HC bans allotment of evacuee property

Ishfaq Tantry
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, December 18

The High Court (HC) has imposed a ban on the allotment of evacuee property in the state, stating the Custodian General of J&K has been allotting such property in an arbitrary and illegal manner.

The HC, however, made it clear that the ban would remain in place till the government came up with rules to comprehensively regulate the allotment of such property, including the residential houses of evacuees, under the Custodian General, Evacuee Property, J&K, under the Jammu and Kashmir State Evacuees’ (Administration of Property) Act, 2006.

These orders have been passed by a bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar on a petition by Shafiq Ahmad Shah, who had sought quashing of an order passed by the Custodian General, J&K, under which an evacuee property situated in Sangam village of Ananatnag district and belonging to evacuee Mian Sulaiman Asif was leased out to two persons.

In its detailed orders made available on Tuesday, the court noted that there was no specific provision in the Act of 2006 or rules framed thereunder to provide for the mode and manner in which the evacuee property, having commercial potential, is to be allotted.

“It is not an isolated case of arbitrary and illegal allotment made by the Custodian General. The custodian department has been indulging in such arbitrary allotments of evacuee property in the same manner with impunity,” the High Court observed in its judgment, adding that in the absence of specific rules framed by the government to regulate such allotments, the department had a free run and was indulging in practices that were not countenanced by law.

“The property of evacuees worth crores has been squandered in this manner. The court has been coming across such instances time and again,” the High Court observed in its orders, adding that no allotment of evacuee property would be made unless the state authorities come up with appropriate rules to comprehensively regulate such allotments.

Who is an ‘evacuee’ 

The Act of 2006 defines “evacuee” as a person, who, on account of the setting up of the Dominions of India and Pakistan or civil disturbances or the fear of such disturbances, left Jammu and Kashmir on or after March 1, 1947, for any place outside the territories now forming part of India.