400 acres of shamlat ‘usurped’ in Ropar

Ropar’s Bara Phool village panchayat has lodged a complaint with the Punjab Vigilance Bureau and filed a case in the magistrate’s court, alleging illegal transfer of 400 acres of common land to influential persons over the past two decades.

The panchayat has demanded a thorough investigation and restoration of the land to it. Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Chandrajyoti Singh said a case had been filed in her court by the village panchayat and summons had been issued to the accused.

According to the complaint, the village common land (shamlat) was “systematically usurped and transferred” in the name of nearly 70 people, some of them not even residents of the village.

Valued at Rs 600 crore

The total market value of the land is estimated to be around Rs 600 crore, making it one of the biggest land scams reported in the district in recent years. According to sources, initially the land was transferred to around 40 people, including politically connected figures, some of whom later sold part of the land, increasing the number of titleholders to about 70.

“It was a chain of illegal transfers that went unchecked for years,” a source familiar with the case said. Legal experts said as per Supreme Court rulings, village common land could not be transferred or sold to private individuals under any circumstances. Such land must remain under the ownership of the village panchayat and be used for the collective welfare, an expert said.

‘Clear case of corruption’

Meanwhile, ruling AAP’s Ropar legislator Dinesh Chadha condemned the alleged illegal transfer, calling it “a clear case of corruption and collusion between influential people and government officials”.

He claimed that the scam reflected the modus operandi of previous state governments that allowed large-scale encroachments and transfers of panchayat and government land into private hands.

“About Rs 600 crore of land was usurped by powerful people with the connivance of officials of the Rural Development Department. The land on the Ropar bypass, originally owned by Bara Phool panchayat, was transferred in violation of the law,” Chadha said.

The MLA cited Section 11 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, which allows the transfer of common land in the name of tillers only if they were cultivating it before 1950. “In this case, the land was transferred after 1997, and that too in the name of people who were not residents of Bara Phool village,” he added.