Revenue laws and legal disputes

Revenue laws and legal disputes

An efficient land administration system is necessary for land dispute resolution. But in many regions, like in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, such resolution suffers from delay, costs, and uncertainty in final outcome of litigation. There are in place complex procedures that prolong the resolution process with various appeals and revisions arising out of it.
Property dispute in land creates doubts in the minds of stakeholders regarding the title of land. This results in poor cultivation, low productivity and land degradation. In dispute over a patch of land, raising of crops become difficult as there is no proper ownership. At a few places non-agricultural land is of high value but sale, mortgage or lease is denied due to absence of clear land titles. Litigations and appeals become a burden due to loss of money, fee of advocates, travel expenditure and expenditure towards documents. It is a social loss. It creates quarrels and at times results in murders.
Land disputes are time consuming, expensive and sometimes non-transparent. The legal documents are in such forms and language that they are not intelligible to the common people.
To overcome this, village panchayats are encouraged by the government, but the litigants do not prefer these alternatives. In our country the maximum land disputes are on land ownership issues. There is no clarity of title and sometimes administrative loopholes are also a reason for the land disputes.
Many litigants believe that the major cause of delay in settlement of property disputes is the time spent on proceedings and the delivery of judgement. Many a time there is unavailability of advocates and frequent adjournments asked by either of the parties.
Policy makers made land reforms like Land Ceiling Act 1961 by which only a limited area of land was allowed to be held by a family. Surplus land was taken away and given to landless people. The Tenancy Act 1948 protected the tenant from evacuation and was later deemed as a purchaser. This Act helped to raise productivity. This author once asked his colleague, Mr Sanjay Kumar, about explaining the twin sections of Agrarian Reforms Act, sec 4 and sec 8. He replied that land transferred under these sections to a tiller is meant for rice.
By the Land Acquisition Act 1894, the government has the right to acquire any land for public purpose and the owner is given monetary compensation, as often happens in our union territory when the government acquires land for railway lines or for the national highway.
By The Town Planning Act 1966, the government has the right to reserve lands for special purposes, especially for residential and industrial purpose.
The Forest and Wildlife Sanctuaries Act gives the government the right to restrict property to forest dwellers for conserving wildlife. All these laws lack attention to the matter of resolving land disputes and have made the process time consuming and costly.
I have spent one year in the district record room where I have met people from all walks of life. They come here for mutation copies, revenue extracts or copies of revenue court cases. I sometimes discuss their cases with them and have come to the conclusion that 90 percent land cases are related to agricultural lands. Since non-agricultural lands are at prime location and are costly, the owners are very alert about their rights. Due to population growth and convergence of land many new disputes over land have arisen in the last two decades. The nature of dispute is primarily based on property rights like ownership, possession rights, right of use, right of way, right to use the land for water channel, etc.
One example from Khanabal village of district Anantnag:
Survey number 281: The government has allotted this piece of land to the families whose houses were burnt in a devastating fire way back in the year 1984. One person residing in that patch of land is a businessman and has to register land with the Municipality Committee Anantnag. There the officials asked him for revenue extracts. As my colleagues are busy round the clock with digitisation, he approached my office for getting the revenue extracts. He thought that the land on which his house and shop was constructed will be in the name of his mother. But he came to know that the said land is “makbooziathiszadgan”. He left the office sadly, knowing that the rent deed will not be prepared. This is another kind of dispute.
It is the need of the day to accept the principles of “free hold property rights”. We know that land is the source of livelihood for weaker sections of the society. The government must take effective steps for modification in respective land laws to safeguard the interest of these poor sections. Outdated land laws may act as impediments in investment and economy. The government needs to pay attention towards improvements in many laws related to land.

The writer is In-charge District Record Room Anantnag

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