Land could not have been transferred to individuals, says HC

After perusing the revenue record pertaining to the disputed 464 acres of Gwal Pahari land in Gurgaon, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday observed that the land could not have been transferred to individuals.

The high court bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Darshan Singh asked the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) to initiate proceedings under the Municipal Corporation Act to get the land vacated from unauthorised occupants. It has also sought details from the government as to how much land is under illegal possession and also about the portion, which the civic body recently got vacated.

Earlier, revenue records produced by the Haryana government revealed that the 464 acres was panchayat land and revenue entry of 1939 shows this as shamlat deh (common land). The land is recorded as banjar gair mumkin pahad.Further, the panchayat became the title holder after a consolidation in 1964.

The court orally observed that the revenue entries of 1989, whereby the land was declared jumla mustarka malkan (a variety of common land of which the management and control vests in a gram panchayat but ownership vests in proprietor) and individual were shown as owners, were “wrong”.

It was gram panchayat land and could be transferred only to the municipal corporation of Gurugram (after the area came under the civic body) and not individuals, the HC bench said. The area came under the MCG in 2010.

The high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Harinder Dhingra, a Gurgaon resident, seeking a CBI probe arguing that bureaucrats, politicians and local revenue officials were involved in the issue. An independent probe by an agency such as the CBI was required to ascertain the people involved in the mutation of prime land, he argued.

State’s additional advocate general Surender Pannu said the MCG recently recovered 164 acres and 300 more notices had been sent to various occupants. Of these 300, some 139-odd persons have challenged the MCG’s decision in civil suits, he added.

Yudhvir Singh Malik, financial commissioner (revenue) in 2012, was not competent to pass an order on mutation, which the petitioner alleged had “favoured” some builders.