Amid the ongoing special land survey in Bihar, the Nitish Kumar government’s decision to lock the landholding details (Khata/Khasra) of ownership of lakhs of acres of land across the state to prevent any future transaction on that threatens to snowball into a big issue.
While people, including those from the opposition parties, are alleging that the locking of land will lead to astronomical litigation, the government officials are maintaining that the only land earmarked in the previous survey has been locked and thus no rule has been flouted.
RJD MP Sudhakar Singh said that locking land records at the district level on a large scale on the pretext that they were government land to prevent transaction without serving notice to the persons holding the title of the land was a strange move that would force thousands of people to knock the doors of the judiciary and this could have serious consequences due to sheer magnitude.
“Even if people start going to the court, as some of them have already done, imagine the load on the judiciary and the quantum of time it would take to deal with all the individual cases. It could take decades, as on an average 10,000-15,000 land accounts coverings around 25,000 acres in every district have been locked. Land is a national property, but it does not mean that the government is the owner. It means the government has to define the nature of land and prevent its misuse as a regulator, as was done in the previous two surveys,” he said, adding that the farmers and land owners had already started feeling the pinch and voicing concern.
He said that as per the provisions laid down in the Bihar special survey and settlement Act, 2011, only High Court and Supreme Court would be able to address any legal dispute, which means a mere 5-10% of the nearly three crore farmers, tenants and land owners going to court would lead to astronomical increase in cases and not all of them would be able to pursue them.
“The way legal processes and Acts are being circumvented through executive orders, the land owners and farmers are feeling scared about the government’s intention to grab land under a well planned strategy for making land banks for industrialists. Even if the government feels its land has been fraudulently sold to someone, there is a legal processes for it. Any officer is not competent to decide the title of the land. Only the court can do it. What was required was digitalisation of land records, which the government could not do and is now putting the onus on the masses to shift its responsibility,” he added.
Additional chief secretary, department of revenue and land reforms, Dipak Kumar Singh, however, said that there was no relation between the ongoing survey and the locking of land accounts. “Locking is being done at the district level and the district level committee is looking into the objections. Only the land that was shown with the government in the previous survey but have been fraudulently sold or encroached are being locked,” he added.
Singh said that ample opportunity was being given to the land owners to present their records of rights. “They get three opportunities for raise objections within 90 days and after that they could approach the district land tribunal. We are also planning for another provision of appeal above the settlement officer. If any land is wrongly locked and proper documents are shown, it is also opened,” he added.
The ACS said that the government would not go into family disputes over land ownership and in such cases would make a joint account. “The families will be left to address their internal disputes,” he added.
However, advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma said that there are many issues that need to be addressed and that is, perhaps, the reason why the survey has been stopped for the time being, though it could restart any time.
“The biggest problem is that land records are not updated and still in the name of grand parents or great grand parents, while many families shifted outside. There are also many people who were made to settle on land during various social movements or by the government, but have no documents that it is theirs despite their possession,” he added.
Maintaining that the government should have first set its records right before starting the survey, Verma said that as far as locking of land to prevent further registry is concerned, it could dilute the objective of survey, as the separation of power mandates the executive cannot decide the title rights and it could be done only through established legal procedure.
