CUTTACK: In A landmark judgment, the Orissa High Court has directed the State Government to conduct a detailed inquiry into the irregularities in grant of lease of land within undivided Cuttack and Puri districts by forming a high-level committee and taking necessary action to resume the land.
The Committee shall be headed by Member Board of Revenue, Secretary Revenue Department, Commissioner of Police and collectors of Puri, Khurda and Cuttack, which shall review all the grant of lease of land within the above districts and submit a report to the Government and the HC within three months.
The court directed the Government to take appropriate action in accordance with the said report for resumption of such government land where lease has been granted in violation of the Orissa Communal Forest and Private Land (prohibition of alienation) Act.
The entire exercise of resuming the land should be completed within six months of submission of the report.
The committee, while reviewing the lease, should make an endeavour to find out persons responsible for such illegal grants and if necessary initiate criminal action against them.
The division bench comprising acting Chief Justice IM Quddusi and Justice BP Ray also directed the State Government to submit a status report to the court every month.
The directions have come while adjudging a writ filed by one Chandradhwaja Sahoo appealing for quashing of all proceedings initiated by the State Government in connection with the grant of lease in his favour.
Sahoo had submitted that a lease of two acres of land at Patia village in Bhubaneswar was granted in his favour in March 1979. But the record of rights (RoR) was not corrected in his name. After 25 years in 2005, he filed an application with the Member Board of Revenue, who directed the tehsildar to make corrections.
As the order was not complied, he had filed a petition in the HC in 2007 on which the then single judge bench had also taken the same stand. The Government had then gone to the division bench with an appeal against the order of the single judge.
In between, the Member Board of Revenue had also started proceedings for recall of the 2005 order against which the petitioner again approached the HC.
The Government in its counter affidavit provided an evidence that the lease case record was forged as was the report of the revenue inspector.
The lease application did not bear any date nor a stamp duty. The signature of the tehsildar was also forged.
The HC while taking a serious view of the case cancelled the lease while directing for a detailed review into the entire leasing scenario in the districts concerned.