COUNTERVIEW:
Ahmedabad: Sunday, 24 January 2016.
A recent
reply to a Right to Information (RTI) plea suggests that the Gujarat government
has refused to comply by a Supreme Court direction of 2011 which asks all state
governments to “restore” common grazing and government lands handed over in
the past for activities other than what it they are meant to the villages to
which they actually belonged.
While facts provided in the RTI reply relate to
just three talukas of one district, Tapi, these are particularly significant,
as it they part of Gujarat’s "neglected" eastern tribal belt, where
river sand mining is rampant. This mining has been continuing, say local
activists, without gram panchayat nod for handing over lease. According to
Sutariya, RTI replies suggest, permissions are being given setting up black
stone crushing units on these lands.
The RTI reply to Romel Sutariya of the
upcoming tribal farmers’ organization of South Gujarat, Adivasi Kisan Sangharsh
Manch (AKSM), reveals that in three talukas Valod, Vyara and Songadh out of
a total of 62 leases, in as many as 15
case, where such activities have been allowed on common grazing or government land.
In Valod
taluka, all five permissions for such activities have been allocated on
government land. In Vyara taluka, of the 15 such permissions, eight are on
common grazing land. And in Songadh taluka, of 4the 2 permissions, two are on
government land.
In their
direction, Supreme Court judges Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra said on
January 28, 2011, that “regularization” of lands should be permitted only “in
exceptional cases… where lease has been granted under some government
notification to landless labourers or members of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled
Tribes, or where there is already a school, dispensary or other public utility
on the land.”
The Supreme
Court bench said, it has noticed a wide misuse of laws to “usurp” Gram Sabha
lands either in “connivance” with government officials, or by “forging orders”
so that “they may not be compared with the original revenue record showing the
land as Gram Sabha land.”
Seeking
restoration of government and common grazing land to the villages they belonged
to, the bench asked “the Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/Union
Territories in India … to do the needful” by speedily evicting illegal
occupants after giving them show cause notice and a brief hearing.
“Long
duration of such illegal occupation or huge expenditure in making constructions
thereon or political connections must not be treated as a justification for
condoning this illegal act or for regularizing the illegal possession”, the
bench underlined.
Referring to
the apex court direction, Sutariya has written a letter to Gujarat chief
secretary GR Aloria that, while AKSM has for long been fighting against the
adverse environmental impact on vegetation because of such activities, the
latest revelation through an RTI plea clearly suggests a lot of such
"illegal" activity has been going on, on government and common
village land.
The letter
sought the chief secretary’s “immediate intervention” for stopping these
illegal activities on not just on government or grazing land, but also on
private land, as it is causing “immense harm to the health and agriculture of
the tribal farmers.”
Demanding
action against government officials who allowed such leases, the letter
insisted that these illegal activities, especially on common grazing and
government lands, must stop with immediate effect, and a process should begin
to ensure that they are restored to the tribal villages.
.JPG)
.JPG)
