This is what triggered J&K U-turn on high court scrapping Roshni Act

J&K administration last week asked the HC to review its ruling that scrapped the Roshni Act, under which encroachments on state land were regularised.

File photo of Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha | Photo: ANI

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir administration, which last week asked the high court to modify its 9 October order scrapping the Roshni Act, based its decision on negative feedback from local residents fearing loss of land and livelihood, ThePrint has learnt.

Besides this, the high court’s decision to deem the Act unconstitutional and illegal had also raised concerns within the government, given that hundreds of its officials were involved in implementing the legislation that was legally passed by the state assembly in 2001, official sources said.

Under the Roshni Act, encroachments on state land had to be regularised or legally transferred to the occupants against payment at market rates. The Act had set 1990 as the cut-off year for encroachment. The idea was to raise Rs 25,000 crore to build infrastructure for electricity, or roshni. Subsequent governments under the PDP and the Congress extended the cut-off date to 2007.

On 9 October this year, the J&K High Court declared the Roshni Act as “unconstitutional, contrary to law and unsustainable”. Following this, the J&K administration on 31 October cancelled all land transfers that took place through the legislation. 

The revenue department had been tasked with working out a plan to retrieve large tracts of state land regularised under the Act.

Official sources, however, said that “feedback” on the government’s plan to retrieve land had become a major concern across J&K. 

According to the sources, alarming inputs from areas such as Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur, in particular, had forced a sense of urgency within the government to introspect on its decision.

Sources added that after the feedback, both from the people and government officials, reached the office of the J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, he decided to intervene personally after holding discussions with the Centre.

It was a result of these deliberations that the revenue department filed an affidavit in the high court on 4 December stating that court ruling on Roshni Act will make the common people suffer “unintentionally”.

‘A law for the poor’

The government in its review petition has said a distinction must be made between the common people and the influential people who have benefited from the Act.

The matter was heard in J&K High Court Monday and has been adjourned to 16 December.

“It was a decision taken for the benefit of the poor. The government has however made it clear that it wants the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to look into cases where influential people abused the law,” said a senior government official.

The J&K administration has also raised questions over the investigations launched by the CBI, stating that it might have not been the intention of the J&K High Court to investigate thousands of government employees who implemented the Act without any malafide intentions. The CBI has filed multiple FIRs in the alleged scam.

“The top brass of the J&K administration had come under severe internal criticism as the CBI probes would have invariably targeted both former and current government employees who were simply implementing the Act,” said a second government source. “The executive was simply doing its job. If the judiciary has taken a call on something, it is important that the executive too put forth its perspective.”

When contacted Nazir Ahmed Thakur, special secretary to the government, revenue department, said, “I won’t be able to offer a comment. I am not authorised to speak” 

Pawan Kotwal, principal secretary to the government, revenue department, did not respond to calls or messages from ThePrint.

Feedback from Jammu played a huge role in U-turn

Officials speaking to ThePrint said the government was particularly concerned about the feedback from Jammu division given that most of the land regularised under the Roshni Act and a majority of beneficiaries belong to the Jammu region.

“The district level officials had been collecting information of how the people had taken the development. Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur have particularly given negative feedback,” said a senior administration official.

Jammu-based advocate Shakeel Ahmed, who had originally filed the PIL challenging the Act, said although the government has cited welfare of the poor as the reason behind the latest review petition, “one had to see what their intentions are”.

“Only the future will tell what their intention is. For now they are saying that they have taken the decision for the poor,” said Ahmed who originally had filed the PIL in 2011 seeking retrieval of large tracts of land that were occupied by some influential people of J&K, including bureaucrats, politicians and police officers.

Ankur Sharma, president of Ekjut Jammu, however, raised questions on the government decision. “There are farmers who were occupying state land but they can be given ownership rights under the Agrarian reforms act. There was no need to file a review petition. The government wants to protect its own, whether it is bureaucrats or police officers.”