State Ordinance allows Thousands of Land Grabbers go scot-free

Amid lockdown which has virtually put the brakes on the administration, the BJP Government last week issued a far-reaching ordinance that exempts all farmers who have applied before the taluk-level land regularisation committees headed by the local MLA from land-grabbing cases.

The law is applicable for only those farmlands outside the jurisdiction of Bengaluru and municipalities across the state, and that has been considered by the government-constituted land regularisation committees at taluk level.

With thousands of bagair hukum land farmers having been “branded” as land grabbers, there had been political pressure on successive Governments. Bagair hukum lands are those where farmers are seeking regularisation of Government lands that are being unauthorisedly cultivated.

Earlier last month, Senior BJP members had debated the issue at the legislative assembly and sought reprieve for farmers, who despite being eligible for regularisation as per the Karnataka Land Revenue Act amendments under Section 94 A, are facing land-grabbing cases. Taking a cue, the state government on April 10 issued an ordinance which effectively withdraws land-grabbing cases against farmers.

“It had become a recurring problem and farmers had to fight cases despite the government inviting them to regularise the land. So, we brought the ordinance to exempt them from cases,” said law minister JC Madhuswamy.

However, the bigger concern is that there’s no specification of the extent of land grabbing that can be exempted from the cases. Sagar BJP MLA Hartal Halappa said though the ordinance is meant to serve primarily the small and marginal farmers, it needs to be ensured that those who have encroached upon large tracts of government and forest property are not given a “free pass”.

“While we welcome the ordinance, it needs to be tightened while framing the rules and regulations that big land-grabbers like those who have over 40 acres are not exempted from the act,” said Halappa, adding there were 82,000 cases pending in his taluk alone.

At the other end, the ordinance also tightens the rules for appeals against the rulings of the special courts by giving it power to allow an appeal or dispose of the cases, while taking away powers of the civil courts to hear land-grabbing cases.

“There are thousands of cases pending in civil courts and this cannot be an added burden. So we have given the special courts complete jurisdiction of these cases outside the municipal jurisdictions,” said Madhuswamy.

Source Link