100 acres for quake victims gobbled up,HC orders clean-up

According to the details,after Adhoi from Bhachau taluka of Kutch district was devastated in the 2001 earthquake,the state government had acquired 300 acres of land from local farmers at the rate of Rs 5 per square metre for non-irrigated land and Rs 7 per square metre for irrigated land.

The Maharashtra government had adopted the village for rehabilitation purpose and had built around 500 houses for the earthquake victims there.

One hundred acres of land from the total 300 acres land was kept reserved for public purposes.

However,over the years,some private groups built a derasar,dharamshala,private houses and commercial complexes etc. on the land after getting “illegal” permission from the village panchayat,which had passed resolutions to that

effect.

One Khetsinh Shah,who is a native of Adhoi settled in Mumbai,moved court challenging the encroachment on the 100 acres of land through his advocate Bhushan Bhatt.

Against this,some private groups also moved the court to protect their construction on the government land.

A division bench of HC comprising acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala pronounced the judgment on Wednesday while coming down heavily on the encroachment on the government land and ordered its removal within a stipulated time.

The court expressed its extreme displeasure at the erection of derasar and commercial buildings on the government land.

“In our country,shelter for poor is more important than building temples,” it observed.

The court ordered the district collector to issue a notice to the persons who encroached on the land to get the illegal structures built by them removed within two weeks and take possession of the land.

The court has ordered the state government to set up a committee to inquire into the episode and take disciplinary actions against the officials who allowed encroachments on the land acquired for the rehabilitation of the poor.