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Agencies:

Govt preparing list of former ministers, bureaucrats who benefitted from Roshni Act

Srinagar
November 24, 2020

Adhering to court directions, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has started the process to disclose details of all beneficiaries including former ministers, bureaucrats and prominent hoteliers, businessmen who have been vested land under the now scrapped Roshni Act.

A senior Government official said that the Government has already ordered revenue officials to cancel mutation under the Roshni Act. “We are preparing a list of beneficiaries, so far we have collected data of over 15,000 beneficiaries, including VIPS whose names will be uploaded on the government website after due vetting from concerned agencies.”

The official said that following the investigation, it has come to fore that Government land worth crores of rupees will be recovered.

“The court direction and subsequent government action has exposed the nefarious manner in which government land has been taken over by the rich and influential and converted into commercial use,” he said.

“By illegal working of the government functionaries, out of the actual transfer of around 3,48,200 kanals of land under the Roshni Act, the major portion of over 3,40,100 kanals has been transferred free of cost as agricultural land.”

“An in-depth inquiry of all transfers affected by the working of the Roshni Act, 2001 (and amendments thereto), Roshni Rules, 2007 and continuing encroachments of the public lands is absolutely imperative in public interest,” the senior official said adding that “the damage by the illegal acts and omissions in the present case cannot be termed as mere loss to public interest but has to be treated as a shameless sacrilege and damage to national interest.”

“The guilty need to be forthwith identified and proceeded against in accordance with law. The present case, therefore, is a fit case for enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation which is required to go into all aspects of the matter.”

“Over the last 30-40 years, usurping government and forest lands through various means has been one of the biggest scams in Jammu and Kashmir. This has taken various forms both through supposedly legal means by enacting laws to regularize lands which have been encroached by the rich, wealthy and influential peoples or illegally through brazen encroachment of public land,” official said.