SC orders seizure of star farmlands

Speaking to The Indian Express, deputy conservator of forests Rajesh Das said the department will now seize the land and the constructed structures worth approximately Rs 150 crore.

On September 30, the Forest Department seized the land after issuing notices to the promoters of Vrindavan Co-operative Horticulture Society and its members who owned these houses. The department also ordered “suitable legal measures to be taken against the office-bearers of the society for committing violation under Forest Conservation Act and under the IPC for criminal conspiracy, abetment and forgery because of the fraudulent sale of Government reserve forest to private parties by original owners of the above land.”

According to Das, “This is just the beginning as 9,500 hectares of land, worth about Rs 9000 crore at the present market value, has already been seized just in the Raigad district.”

Officials point out that the modus operandi of fraudulently selling Government land was very simple: The private land which was taken over by the Government after the promulgation of Maharashtra Private Forest Acquisition Act, 1975 was never entered into the revenue records and it thus kept changing hands.

Following the seizure, La Tim Lifestyle and Resorts, the company which had developed and sold the plots, moved the High Court challenging the order. The High Court on October 20, directed the return of seized land to the owners and also ordered an inquiry to decide whether the land could be treated as forest or not.

The Forest Department appealed to the Supreme Court on the following grounds:* The notice given to owners mentioned that after the Act of 1975 came into force, all the private forest land vested in the State , and therefore, owners of the houses did not have any right to remain in possession of the land.

* The High Court order had contradictions as in para 2, it had stated that an inquiry was pending to determine the status of the land and subsequently in the same order, the High Court ordered the inquiry.

* The only inquiry proceedings which are pending are under the Maharashtra Private Forest Acquisition Act.

Says D M Nargolkar, standing counsel for the State, “There was never an inquiry under Section 6. The effect of such an inquiry would have been that the owners get back the possession of the seized land and that explains the urgency in moving the Supreme Court.”

The High Court also failed to consider the fact that the bungalows and other non-forestry structures came to be erected on the above land after the Vrindavan Co-op Society was formed in 1989, and these structures did not exist on the day the Acquisition Act came into force.