The Jammu and Kashmir government appears to have changed its mind on the controversial Roshni Act. In October, it had announced that it would begin reclaiming thousands of acres of land distributed under the law, shortly after the court struck down the legislation. But on December 4, the government filed a petition in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, asking it to reconsider its decision.
“Roshni Law” is the popular name for the Jammu and Kashmir State Land Law (Acquisition of Property from Occupants). Passed in 2001, the law was supposed to grant property rights to occupants of state lands for a fee decided by the government. The proceeds from these transactions were to finance energy projects in Jammu and Kashmir, hence the nickname, Roshni Law.
In October, the high court declared it “unconstitutional” and ordered an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the “land scam” allegedly enabled by the Roshni Law.
The Union Territory government now wants the court to modify its order so that it can act only against “rich and rich land grabbers.” In the petition filed by a tax department official, the government also appears less than a supporter of the Central Bureau of Investigation’s investigation.
However, when the sentence was handed down for the first time, the Union ministers, as well as the top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, called it a “surgical attack” on corruption. For weeks, the Union Territory administration has published lists of beneficiaries, many of whom belong to opposition parties currently contesting local government elections.
What caused this change of opinion?
Protecting the poor?
For years, transactions under the law have been plagued with allegations of corruption and have been challenged in court. In popular opinion, land allocations under the law favored political elites and powerful officials. However, allocations were also made to poor families who had occupied state lands for years.
The government claims it wants to protect poor beneficiaries. In its petition for review, the government of Jammu and Kashmir wants the court to divide the beneficiaries under the Roshni scheme into two classes of people: “landless cultivators and individuals residing in housing in small areas” and “wealthy land grabbers. and rich “.
The main criteria for such a classification, the petition says, would be a limit to determine “a landless cultivator or a homeowner with at most one house for personal use.” No relief would be extended to beneficiaries who obtained land above these limits. The government proposes a mechanism to “allow this class” to “continue in possession of the land” subject to an “appropriate ceiling and payment at an appropriate rate.”
It is unclear how many people fall into either category, or if the government examined the entire list of beneficiaries before proposing a maximum land limit. There are an estimated 33,000 beneficiaries under the Roshni Act. So far, only 6,598 names have been published, 2,458 in the Kashmir Valley and 4,140 in Jammu.
“Let’s not judge the government’s arguments in the petition,” remarked Jammu defender Shakeel Ahmad, who represented SK Bhalla, an academic from Jammu who had filed a petition against the alleged land grab by powerful elites in the state. .
Avoiding ‘roaming research’?
Another key demand in the government’s review petition is to avoid “an unintentional roving investigation by the IWC, which can go on endlessly without generating the results sought by the higher court.” The government wants the Central Bureau of Investigation to tailor its investigation to be “more results-oriented” and “focus on the influential and powerful people who defrauded the state.”
He wants the agency to refrain from conducting a detailed investigation into thousands of government officials who implemented the law. “Any investigation should better address fraud, bad faith or criminal intent,” the petition advises. “Any investigation should focus solely on the invasion of government land or the obtaining of government land by fraudulent means.”
The government, however, is interested in having the agency analyze the “policy and legal framework design and changes” made to the Roshni Act. The law was enacted in 2001 under the government of a National Conference. Subsequent changes were made under Kashmiri party-led governments.
The petition for review also requests that cases registered by the Jammu and Kashmir Anti-Corruption Office not be transferred to the Central Investigation Office. So far, the Anti-Corruption Office has registered 17 first information reports on alleged illegalities under the Roshni Law. “The transfer of these cases, which are in an advanced stage, to the CBI will delay the presentation of the culprits,” the petition says.
But Ahmed recalled that the court had “repeatedly criticized the Anti-Corruption Office for failing to take action against the culprits.” “It just doesn’t make any sense why the government doesn’t want to transfer these cases to the CBI,” he said.
However, the government wants the request for review to be heard quickly to avoid such an investigation. The higher court had postponed hearings on the matter until December 16. On December 8, the administration approached the court with a request for the hearings to be moved forward.
“When this request for a preposition for hearing was submitted, the division, led by Chief Justice Gita Mittal, made a specific query to Additional Advocate General Aseem Sawhney about its urgency,” said Ahmad, who attended the virtual hearing on December 8.
According to him, the government attorney accused the Central Bureau of Investigation of selectively investigating only those cases that were being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Office. Sawhney reportedly claimed that this was creating problems for Jammu and Kashmir administration officials.
The court now listed the petition for review for a hearing on December 11 and ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to submit an action taken report, which will be filed in a sealed cover, by then.
So far, the central investigative agency has recorded four preliminary investigations into the alleged collusion between Jammu Development Authority officials and the state land invaders. If the allegations appear to be serious after preliminary investigations, the agency will file FIR.
Center of a political storm
In addition to filing a petition for review, the government has remained silent on why it has doubts about the Roshni Law. Scroll.in sent written inquiries to Shaleen Kabra, Senior Revenue Secretary, but has yet to receive a response.
The opposition parties, however, did not take blows. On December 7, the National Conference investigated the government’s “U-turn”. “After realizing that the main beneficiaries of the scheme were the BJP and Jammu RSS, the BJP wants to quietly reverse its vitriol of the Roshni Scheme,” National Conference spokesman Imran Nabi Dar said in a release.
Dar claimed that the process of collecting data on Roshni’s beneficiaries had alarmed the BJP, which then pressured the government to submit a petition for review.
The repeal of the Roshni Act and land reclamation had been at the center of a political storm in Jammu and Kashmir. The high court ruling on the Roshni Law in October had figured prominently in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election campaign for the ongoing local government elections. In a high-voltage campaign, the saffron party accused Kashmir’s regional leaders of encroaching on land, profiting from “illegal land grabs.” So far, no BJP leader has been mentioned on the beneficiary lists.
RS Pathania, a spokesperson for the BJP in Jammu, said the party had not yet deliberated on the government’s decision to file a petition for review. “We have not seen the terms and outlines of the government affidavit,” he said.
However, it supported the decision to classify the beneficiaries according to their financial situation. “In my personal opinion, there should be a distinction between the big shots and the common people who have benefited from the law,” he said. “The distinction should not be based on religion, region or class.”
A former member of the Ramnagar legislature in Jammu, Pathania said that ordinary people were within their right to make use of the Roshni scheme. “Roshni was a law passed by a legislature and people have applied it in compliance with that law,” he said. “So in one fell swoop, not everyone can be prosecuted as a criminal.”
The Jammu factor
“The government’s decision to submit a petition for review is an acknowledgment of the pressure from beneficiaries in Jammu,” explained a political observer in Jammu who did not want to be named.
For months, right-wing groups in Jammu have been campaigning against the so-called “ground jihad” enabled by the Roshni Act. In this formulation, the law gave Muslim-majority Kashmir a means to launch a “demographic invasion” of Hindu-majority Jammu.
Official figures contradict this theory. A total of 6.04,602 kanals (75,575 acres) of state lands were approved for regularization under the Roshni Scheme in Jammu and Kashmir. Of this, 5,71,210 kanals (71,401 acres) were in the Jammu region. The actual transfer of ownership took place in only 3,48,200 (43,525 acres) kanals. While about 3.15,000 kanals (39,375 acres) of state land were transferred in the Jammu region, approximately 33,000 kanals (4,125 acres) were transferred in Kashmir. Most of the land transferred in the Jammu region went to Hindu applicants, said Ahmed, who has consulted official records.
According to the political observer, evictions and demolitions to reclaim land transferred under the Roshni Act would not suit the BJP in Jammu. “Jammu is politically fertile ground for the BJP, it is its main constituency,” he said. “If the government demolishes Mohammad Ramzan’s house in Jammu or Kashmir, it is not a problem for the BJP. But if Sohan Lal’s house is demolished, it’s a problem for them. ”
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