Roshni Act: Farooq’s sister, prominent hoteliers in second list issued by JK admin

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah’s sister and two prominent hoteliers together with a Congress chief determine in the second list of 130 individuals who have availed land below now-scrapped Roshni Act.

According to the recent list uploaded on the web site of Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, majority of the beneficiaries together with a former bureaucrat and his spouse legalised their residential locations below the scheme, whereas there are additionally names of dozens of businessmen who have gotten the possession of their industrial buildings.

This is the second list of beneficiaries issued by the divisional administration in accordance with the October 9 directive of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court which has declared Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable” and ordered a CBI probe into the allotment of the land below this regulation.

The administration uploaded a list of 35 beneficiaries which included former finance minister Haseeb Drabu, a few of his relations and prime hoteliers and a former bureaucrat earlier.

The second list included names of Congress chief K K Amla and Mushtaq Ahmad Chaya, each prominent businessmen and hoteliers in addition to former bureaucrat Mohammad Shafi Pandit and his spouse.

Suriya Abdullah, sister of Farooq Abdullah, was additionally named among the many beneficiaries who acquired possession of an over three kanal plot below residential use.

According to the list, the land had been authorised by the authorities however she was but to pay ₹1 crore charges. No discover had additionally been issued to her for the reason that time of approving the land in her title.

On November 1, the Union Territory administration cancelled all land transfers that came about below the JK State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 – often known as the Roshni Act – below which 2.5 lakh acres of land was to be transferred to the prevailing occupants.

The principal secretary and income division have been requested to work out a plan to retrieve massive tracts of state land vested below the Act. According to the excessive court docket order, a complete of 6,04,602 kanals (75,575 acres) of state land had been regularised and transferred to the occupants. This included 5,71,210 kanals (71,401 acres) in Jammu and 33,392 kanals (4174 acres) in the Kashmir province.

“Principal Secretary to Government, Revenue Department shall also work out the modalities and plan to evict encroachers from such State Land and retrieve the State land within a period of six months. Principal Secretary to Government, Revenue Department shall work out modalities for handling the money received for these lands after annulment,” the JK authorities had mentioned in a press release.

According to the order, full identities of influential individuals, together with ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, authorities officers, cops and businessmen, their relations or individuals holding benami for them, who’ve derived profit below the Roshni Act, shall be made public inside a interval of 1 month.

The Roshni Act was enacted in 2001 with the dual goal of producing sources for financing energy initiatives and conferment of proprietary rights to the occupants of the state land. It initially envisaged conferment of proprietary rights of round 20.55 lakh kanals (102750 hectares) to the occupants of which solely 15.85 %land was authorised for vesting of possession rights.

The scheme was lastly repealed by the then governor Satya Pal Malik on November 28, 2018.

Amid experiences about its widespread misuse, the complete laws was challenged earlier than the excessive court docket which stayed the proceedings below the Act and in addition directed that neither the occupants having been conferred upon the possession rights shall promote these lands nor can increase constructions on such lands.

In 2014, nonetheless, the Comptroller and Auditor General had estimated that solely Rs 76 crore had been raised from the switch of encroached land between 2007 and 2013.