The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday dismissed a batch of petitions by a former Congress MLA and his relatives claiming about 620 bigha of government land, near Jaipur, as theirs and returned it to state government.
The land, in question is situated at Manda-Bhinda village at Kalwar in Chomu Tehsil, is a part of 1,850 bigha industrial corridor proposed to be developed by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO). It was being illegally claimed by one Tejmal alias Tejpal Yadav, a former Congress MLA (1980) and his relatives since pre-independence, based on fake entries in revenue records.
The petitioners by way of a bunch of petitions have challenged the decision of revenue board approving reference made by Additional District Collector Jaipur seeking rejection of the fake entries in name of ex-MLA and his relatives. Also, the Revenue broad held that the land was originally recorded as 'khalsa' (government land) but in connivance with the brother of temple priest, the petitioners fraudulently get the mutation of land record entries done at the settlement office.
The matter surfaced in year 1995 after a call attention motion was brought in the assembly and an inquiry was then made followed by registration of FIR in the matter. The petitioners, contended before the single judge Justice MN Bhandari that the reference was made in year 2002 against the entries of year 1952 and "that too after a delay of more than 38 years and the petitioners were in possession of the land measuring 620 bighas of land."
Additional Advocate General, appearing for state, Abhinav Sharma said that the basic entries which are the sole ground of claim of the petitioner were found fraudulent. "And in case the petitioner was aggrieved they could have brought a regular suit for correction of entries and for declaration of their title rights in the land which they choose not to do," the judge said. It was contested before the bench that the petitioners have entangled the public land in litigation for more than a period of 68 years and were still not willing to ease out the priceless land form their illegal possession.
Senior Advocate Virendra Lodha appearing for RIICO submitted that the entire project proposed at the place is suffering as land in dispute was situated in the midst of the proposed project which is one of the biggest industrial corridor to be developed in Asia.
Looking to the submissions Justice Bhandari dismissed all the four petitions and observed that this was a pure criminal act to engulf the precious public land.
Comments
0 comment