Former ministers, officers, businessmen in list of Roshni land deal beneficiaries in J&K

Jammu, Nov 24: Among people who have benefited in the alleged Roshni Act Scam include prominent politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen as per the sources reports. The brief outline of the scheme is given as under  :

• The Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act 2001 or the Roshni Act was enacted by the then Legislative Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir State in 2001 to finance the production and distribution of electricity in the state.
• According to this act, the government sold the land to the persons who forcibly occupied the government-owned land.
• About 20 lakh kanals or 1 lakh hectares of land were transferred by this act. Recently, the validity of this act has been declared null and void by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court while hearing the petition.

According to the initial list made public by the government, names belonging to different political parties, business houses, and government institutions have benefited from the alleged Roshni Act scam.

Among the politicians whose names have appeared in the alleged scam include former finance minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  leader Haseeb Draboo and his family members, a prominent businessman and Congress leader KK Amla and his family members, retired senior CS rank IAS officer Mohammad Shafi Pandit and his family members, hotelier Mushtaq Chaya, Restaurant owner Showkat Choudhary, and Syed Muzzafar Aga and others

Similarly, the names of politicians involved in encroached state land other than Roshni include National Conference (NC) leader Syed Akhoon, Haroon Choudhary, ex-minister Sajjad Kichloo,  former NC leader and advocate general Aslam Goni, Ex- Congress minister Abdul Majid Wani and former chairman JK Bank M Y Khan, Raman Bhalla of congress.

The Jammu & Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 200, commonly known as Roshni Act, was enacted during the Farooq Abdullah government in 2001 with an aim to generate Rs 25,000 crore for hydel power projects in J&K by transferring 20 lakh kanals of land to existing occupants against payment at market rates.

The cut-off date was set as 1990. However, the Act was amended twice. In 2004, the then PDP government led by Mufti Sayeed extended the cut-off date to 2004, and later Congress government under the leadership of Ghulam Nabi Azad further extended it to 2007.

In 2014, the Comptroller and Auditor General estimated that only Rs 76 crore had been realized from the transfer of encroached land between 2007 and 2013.

The CAG report pointed to irregularities in the implementation of the Act as the cause of its failure to generate the expected revenue. The report listed irregularities such as “arbitrary” reduction in prices of the land and said that the reduction was aimed to benefit politicians and other affluent people.

As a result, the Act was found to have fallen short of its purpose and was repealed by former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik on 28 November 2018.

On November 3, the government declared the Roshni Act, as “null and void” and asked the Principal Secretary of the Revenue department to retrieve land regularised under Roshni Act and remove encroachments within six months.

The move came weeks after the J&K High Court ordered a CBI investigation into an alleged Rs 25,000 crore land scam.

Divisional Commissioners Kashmir and Jammu had asked all the Deputy Commissioners to submit details of transferred land under the Roshni Act and other encroached state land in the district.

Apart from politicians and businessmen – trusts, religious and educational places have also made an entry into the list of Roshni Act beneficiaries, the investigation reveals.

 The High Court ordered a CBI probe into the allocation of land under the Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act 2001– commonly known as the Roshni Act. The CBI has registered multiple FIRs in the matter. The court also asked for a list of beneficiaries.

Sources said hundreds of acres of forest and state land was illegally transferred to influential politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, and judicial functionaries all over J&K under the Act, with the quantum of the alleged scam pegged at over Rs 25,000 crore.

Others in the list include hotelier Mushtaq Ahmed Chaya, retired IAS officer (chief secretary rank) Mohd Shafi Pandit and his wife Nighat, former NC leader and Advocate General Aslam Goni, and several government officials and former legislators.

The Roshni Act proposed that ownership rights be given to persons holding state land unauthorisedly till the cut-off year of 1990, on payment equivalent to the market rate prevailing that year, as “eviction of these lands is very difficult”. In 2005, the PDP government led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed relaxed the cut-off year to 2004, which was further moved to 2007 under the Congress government led by Ghulam Nabi Azad (the Congress and PDP were in alliance at the time).

The objective of the Act was to raise resources for hydro-electric projects. While the government expected to realize over Rs 25,000 crore as regularisation fees, a 2014 CAG report noted that only Rs 76 crore had been realized from the transfer of encroached land between 2007 and 2013.

Investigations have revealed irregularities such as undervaluation of land, vesting of ownership without any payment, and regularisation of prohibited encroachments such as those on forest lands. In 2007, sources said, there were instances of agricultural land being given away literally free, and urban land being transferred at huge discounts. Rules were framed to allow change of use of agricultural and forest lands to commercial, sources said.

In 2011, a retired professor, S K Bhalla, filed a PIL on the matter. In 2014, following the CAG revelations, Bhalla filed another PIL, seeking a vigilance inquiry. On November 28, 2018, the State Administrative Council under then-Governor Satyapal Malik repealed the Act and canceled all pending applications. The Anti-Corruption Bureau registered 17 FIRs in the matter.

On October 9 this year, the High Court passed an order on Bhalla’s PIL directing a CBI inquiry and canceling all allotments “ab initio (from the beginning)”. The court also declared the Roshni Act “unconstitutional, contrary to law and unsustainable”, and ordered the UT administration to recover all land given away under the legislation.

The court further ordered the administration to publish all information related to the Act on a website. This included details of the state land which was in unauthorized occupation, along with the identity of the encroachers; the applications received under the Roshni Act, 2001; the valuation of the land; the amounts paid by the beneficiaries; the persons who had been granted ownership; and also further transfers, if any, recognized by the authorities.

It also asked the government to publish details of all influential persons and those holding Benami land for them, who benefited under the Roshni Act

Roshni act at a glance

• In 2001, the National Conference Government enacted the Roshni Act. By the amount collected through land selling the government aimed to finance the production and distribution of the electricity projects in the state.
• Only those people who have possession of government land before 1999 are considered eligible under this Act, but this provision was not followed, an amendment done in Roshni Act in 2004 ended the importance of 1999 and included all the occupiers. This led to the rapid encroachment of government lands in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Implementation of the Roshni Act also showed widespread loopholes. There was also no transparency in land ownership transfer and land allocation.
• According to the 2004 amendment, there was a provision to make the scheme irrelevant from 2007, but by amending it, influential people became owners of government lands.
• In 2013, the then Principal Accountant General accused the scam of about 25000 crores in this scheme and also said that free allocation of land resources (including agricultural land) has been done. The Principal Accountant General had publicly disclosed various aspects of the scheme related to the Roshni Act in a Report of the Controller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year 2012-13 in public.
• It was also implied in the CAG report that there was misuse of the system and lack of transparency in the process of implementation of this Act.
• In 2016, a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the High Court by an advocate Ankur Sharma. After hearing this, in 2018 the High Court stayed on the implementation of the Roshni Act.
• In 2018 itself, the Council of the then Governor Satyapal Malik imposed an executive ban on the implementation of this Act.
• On 9 October 2020, the High Court directed the CBI to investigate the errors in the implementation of the scheme.
• The validity of this act was declared null and void by a decision of the High Court after which the Jammu and Kashmir administration also declared it null and void.
  

  High Court’s decision

  • The High Court has described this act as completely unconstitutional, against legal principles, and unsustainable.
  • High Court has issued instructions against the implementation of this Act. The following are the directions issued by the High Court.
  • The names of all influential persons (including ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, police, businessmen, or anyone else, or Benami property of influential people, or their relatives) who misuse this Act will be announced publicly in 1 month.
  • All government lands will be withdrawn within 6 months. The revenue department will share the reports with the administration weekly.
  • A directive has been issued to the Principal Secretary of the Revenue Department that he abolished all decisions that are taken under this Act by the immediate effect. The order states that the Principal Secretary Revenue Department will collect the details of the government land, based on January 1, 2001, and display it on the website.
  • The Divisional Commissioner of Jammu and Kashmir has been instructed to submit details of the district-wise occupation of government land under the Roshni Act.
    

    Effect of repeal of Roshni act:

    • Misusing the autonomy provided in Article 370 by this Act, a scam of 25000 crores done by influential classes like ministers, officers, bureaucrats, and businessmen, which harms the development of the people of J&K. After repealing the act it helps in development in the state.
    • The Roshni Act had caused the loss of socio-economic justice in Jammu and Kashmir, possibly to be compensated now.
    • Recently, outsiders have been allowed to buy land in Jammu and Kashmir. Now land and buyers both are available in the state. This will speed up the development of Jammu and Kashmir.
    • According to previous reports, 15% of the land allotted by this Act was considered appropriate, so administrative sensitivity is necessary for recovery with these allocations.
    • Due to the Roshni Act, Gujjar and Bakarwal community people of Jammu and Kashmir who have been living a long nomadic life, starting their life by getting land ownership. But the order of repeal of the Roshni Act has come in a frame. Now, this community has faced a crisis to save its life and livelihood. Administrative sensitivity is required in this issue.
    • Increase in development in Jammu and Kashmir will also weaken the roots of separatism.

    In a democracy, there is no place for acts like the Roshni Act which promotes social and economic inequality. Somewhere social and economic inequality lies in the roots of separatism, thus this step will help to weaken separatism.