HC directs Haryana additional CS to file affidavit in Kashmiri Pandits land allotment case

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, May 12

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has called for an affidavit by the Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary, Department of Revenue, Haryana, after observing it was “very difficult for this Court to understand” as to why petitioners — Kashmiri Pandits should be made to suffer after already suffering enough for past 30 years.

The assertion by the Bench of Justice Amol Rattan Singh and Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta came after the Court was told that some of the vendors were not even owners of the part of the land fraudulently sold to the Kashmiri Pandits.

“If the respondents are fully aware of that fact, as to why no criminal proceedings have been initiated against those who are alleged to have acted as above, thereby defrauding the petitioners or some of them to any extent, would also need to be explained by the respondent,” the Bench observed.

The direction came on a petition filed against the State of Haryana and other respondents Roop Krishen Koul and other petitioners through counsel Padamkant Dwivedi. The Bench observed a provisional letter of allotment was stated to have been issued in the petitioners’ favour. But counsel for the petitioners submitted a condition precedent to actual possession was that the land taken in exchange by the respondent — HSVP — from the petitioners, in lieu of the land allotted to them, was to be entered in the mutation register in HSVP’s favour.

The counsel for the HSVP, on the other hand, contended there may be an issue. “A part of the land as has been given up by the petitioners was fraudulently sold to them by their vendors, inasmuch as some of the vendors were not even owners of that part, with them having sold land in excess of their share.”

The Bench asserted: “If that is the case and people who have already suffered in Kashmir have again been defrauded by persons upon their attempt to resettle in Haryana, as already observed in the last order, the respondent-State should be adopting a very liberal attitude in granting them land and thereafter dealing with the persons who perpetrated the fraud (if that is found to be so), by even possibly taking civil proceedings for recovery from them with that land having now been utilized by the HSVP,” the Bench added.

Before parting, the Bench added the affidavit could be filed by next senior officer in the Department of Revenue. The issue regarding payment of compound interest on external development charges would also be responded to by the HSVP, the Bench added.