BIHAR TO STOP LAND GRABBING

LAND IS STILL FOR THOSE WHO CAN HOLD IT

The govt of Bihar is planning to come out with a legislation in the current session of Legislative assembly to stop illegal and forceful dispossession of lawful owner from his land.

At present there is no specific law with respect to prevention of forceful and illegal dispossession of lawful owner of land. Such cases are tried in civil courts and take many years to get the matter adjudicated. In fact the aggrieved persons have to go to Civil Courts to prove his ‘Title’ over the land in question and naturally burden of proof lie on the petitioners. Thus the aggrieved person has to prove first that the land in question belong to him, only them the court will order for restoration for which the aggrieved person has to bring a fresh suit after winning title. The process obviously is complicated and biased against the law abiding and weak citizen and slated favourably towards land grabbers and land mafia.

Nitish Kumar’s much published and praised experiment of holding Janata ke Darbar me Mukhya Mantri or ‘Chief Minister in the court of public’ programme has been flooded with complaints related to land disputes. Most of the cases which came before the CM are related to forceful dispossession of land by land mafia or criminals. Since no such powers of restoration of such illegal and forceful dispossessions are vested with executive branch of government, the CM found himself helpless on this issue. He use to send the petitioners either to police or to district collectors for redressal, but of no use, because neither collectors or police has the power to restore back the dispossessed land to the lawful owner. In fact CM’s secretariat got stuffed with such problems and become an issue of much discomfort to the CM.

Taking cue from this problem, CM constituted a committee which suggested enactment of a legislation to this effect. The draft of the proposed legislation is ready and likely to get cabinet’s nod within a couple of days. The legislation titled ‘Bihar Land Dispute Redressal Act’ is likely to be put up before the Legislative assembly after approval by the Cabinet. Once this law is passed, Bihar will perhaps become second to Andhra Pradesh only to legislate such law.

It is going to be a land mark because land grabbing and illegal dispossession have become a chronic problem across the country. Lands especially in urban and metros, are becoming costlier day by day and absence of any specific law gives Police and other muscle men to earn fortune due to this problem.

It would require Union government’s consent also because powers under this proposed law would be conferred on executive branch of government hitherto enjoyed by Civil courts, meaning thereby that some provisions of Civil Procedure Code (CPC), which is a central code, would be amended.

Hopefully this law would pave way for other states also to ponder on this vital issue and frame law on similar lines.