Ahmedabad: For the last 21 years the revenue department has held a closely guarded secret over the ownership of more than 800-acre land between Bajana and Kharaghoda in Surendranagar district.
This huge chunk of land, which produces the nation’s salt, once belonged to erstwhile princely state of Patdi and was handed over to the Bombay state during accession in 1949. Today, for some erroneous reasons the revenue department, still shows six private land holders in its records.
One of the heirs of the Patdi state, Karnisinhji Desai, is fighting tooth and nail to prove that the land actually belongs to the state government — a work wh i ch should have been ideally the revenue d e p a r t - ment’s responsibility. In last three years, Karnisinhji using RTI, has gathered enough evidence to prove that the regional office of Dhrangandhra and the Ahmedabad collectorate has been exchanging a series of letters since 21 years to hide the truth.
Interestingly, the Dhrangadhara regional office following Karnisinhji’s RTI had to provide a November 1824 agreement letter signed between Patdi state prince, Wakhatsinhji, and Ahmedabad c o l l e c t o r, A r t h u r Crawford, to hand over the land to the British government for salt production.
In lieu of this transfer the British government paid a compensation of Rs 10,521 and 14,300 kg of salt per annum. This compensation even continued after the August 1949 accession agreement which was signed in the presence of India’s first home secretary VP Menon and Patdi prince Pratapsinhji.
“I was not aware of this compensation amount all my life. I want this compensation to keep my honour as I am the rightful heir. My RTI records show that the compensation was paid till 1989. The revenue department misplaced the 1955 Ahmedabad collector order which is actual proof that the state government is the real owner of the land. If the revenue department can fish out an 1824 agreement why can’t they fish out the 1955 order,” says Karnisinhji. On Monday the Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) ordered that the copy of the 1955 order no. 3420/49/137320 MSP be provided to Karnisinhji.
“Our family was supposed to pay an arrears of Rs 8.45 lakh to the state government. I would require the 1955 agreement to prove this fact,” adds Karnisinhji.
Karnisinhji had dug into his old family records after his father’s death and managed to fish out copies of two conferences of December 30 and 31, 1948, and January 1, 1949, at Jamnagar where the princely states were required to furnish within a month an inventory of immovable properties, securities and cash balance, held by individual rulers as private property.
This was the triggering point for Karnisinhji to start hunting for the rest of the history using RTI.
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