ENCROACHERS OF VILLAGE COMMON LAND TO BE EVICTED

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday declared transfer of village community land for private and commercial use as illegal and directed the states to take immediate steps to evict encroachers.
It directed the state governments to prepare schemes for eviction of illegal occupants of village community land and I restore them back for the purpose it was originally meant for the scheme must provide for speedy eviction, it said.
"Long duration of such illegal occupation or huge expenditure in making constructions thereon or political connections must not be treated as a justification for condoning this illegal act or for regularizing the illegal possession," said a Bench of Justices Markandey Katjuand Gyan Sudha Misra.
Applicable with retrospective effect, this order could create tremors more intense than one caused by the Supreme Court's order four years ago asking the authorities to de-molish and seal Delhi's unauthorised structures, many of which were in village land known as 'laldora'.
The Bench said: "In many states, orders have been issued by the governments permitting allotment of gram sabha land to private persons and commercial enterprises on payment of some money. In our opinion all such government orders are illegal, and should be ignored." .
It quashed a 2007 order of the Punjab government permitting regularization of unauthorized occupation of a village community land in Patiala district by trespassers saying they had illegally encroached the gram panchayat land by using muscle/money power and in collusion witlJ:. II the government and panchayat officials.
The court noted the importance of village community land. "Our ancestors were not fools. They knew that in certain years there may be droughts or water shortages for some or other. reason and water was also required for cattle to drink and bathe.
Hence they built a pond in every village, a tank near every temple etc. There were traditional rain water harvesting methods, which served them for thousands of years," it said.

TOI dated Feb.1, 2011