Haryana IAS officer vacates 20-year-old stay on land deal, later husband and son ‘buy’ it

On March 28, Shashi Gulati and her brother approached revenue officials in Panchkula to register nearly 12 acres of land. They claimed they had sold the land to four individuals for a total value of Rs 5.26 crore. Five acres of land were sold to Phulia’s family, and the remaining land was to be sold to Shubham Juneja, a resident of Manimajra, and the wife of a former Indian Forest Services officer. According to officials, the market value of the land was much higher than the current deal.

On March 29, the state government stopped registering a piece of land after Panchkula Deputy Commissioner Sushil Sarwan requested guidance from Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) T V S N Prasad, who immediately instructed the revenue officials to stop registering any transfer deeds. According to officials, the Panchkula revenue officials are yet to determine the surplus area of the 1,396-acre land previously owned by the king Sardar Bhagwant Singh.

According to official records, Shashi Gulati and her family purchased 14 acres of land from the late king’s legal heirs in the village of Beed Firozadi in Panchkula district. The late king owned approximately 1,396 acres of land in seven villages of Panchkula: Beed Babupur, Beed Firozadi, Bhareli, Sangrana, Barwala, Jaloli, and Fatehpur Viran.

Official sources say that there has been a stay on the land of some villages in Panchkula for the past 20 years as the officials wanted to know which parts of the land from the king’s land fall under the category of surplus under the Haryana ceiling on land holdings Act, 1972, or which areas fall under the ‘permissible area’. The surplus area goes to the state government while the permissible area can be sold and purchased by individuals.

On February 24, 2023, the Punjab and Haryana High Court directed Panchkula’s SDM to redetermine the surplus area according to law. In compliance, the officials started the proceedings.

Meanwhile, in their petition to the Ambala Commissioner, Shashi Gulati’s family sought to revoke the stay order claiming the land concerned did not fall under the surplus category. They also pointed out that the stay on the sale and purchase was vacated twice earlier: once by the then-Ambala Commissioner Alok Nigam in 2004 and again by the then-Panchkula deputy commissioner in January 2017.

Renu Phulia overturned the stay order, which was issued by the SDM in 2003 with a quasi-judicial order in September 2023.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Renu Phulia claimed that her family’s talks to buy the land took place a considerable time after her order.

She said: “When they (Shashi Gulati family) filed a petition before her court, we had no talks regarding purchase of the land concerned. They filed the case in routine, I decided it in routine. They were given permission to sell the land concerned as it is a permissible area.”

“Later, our talks took place in October-November 2023 when they said they wanted to sell the land. We decided to buy the land as it belonged to the permissible area. My husband made a deal to buy five acres of land for Rs 42.5 lakh. My husband informed the Chief Information Commissioner about it. I also took permission from the government to purchase land in the name of my husband and son. My husband gave an advance installment in December 2023. As per the collector rates, we have paid the stamp duty for a value of Rs 2.25 crore for five acres of land.”