Allotment of gram sabha land to private persons illegal Ponds, tanks which served communities for years encroached upon Taking a serious view of illegal and unauthorised encroachments on government poromboke land, the Supreme Court has directed all the State governments to prepare schemes for eviction of such occupants of gram sabha/panchayat/poromboke/shamlat land and restore them to the gram sabha/panchayat for the common use of villagers. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan...

The country’s top court has warned states against allotting gram sabha land to private persons and commercial enterprises and then “regularising” such illegal encroachment in return for money. In a ruling last week, the Supreme Court said such land was for the common use of villagers and directed chief secretaries to prepare schemes to evict “unscrupulous” trespassers who had grabbed land using muscle power or political clout. “In many states, government orders...

A Faridabad-based RTI activist has alleged that he has been receiving threat calls from the local land mafia for filing a PIL against illegal conversion of industrial land for commercial use in the city. Although the Punjab and Haryana High Court had asked the city police to look into his threat perception in 2009, police have done nothing so far. Kishan Lal Gera, who was appointed as an adviser to...

Pachiammal's family has been fighting in court for what has been their land for two generations. They received the two-acre plot from the government, back in 1885, under the Panchami Scheme.   The scheme was brought in by the British during their rule over the Madras Presidency to empower Schedule Caste landless farmers.   Some years ago, it was forcibly taken over by a rich landlord who claims their dead parents owed him money. "We...

A Supreme Court judgment projects the historical thesis that India is largely a country of old immigrants and that pre-Dravidian aborigines, ancestors of the present Adivasis, rather than Dravidians, were the original inhabitants of India. If North America is predominantly made up of new immigrants, India is largely a country of old immigrants, which explains its tremendous diversity. It follows that tolerance and equal respect for all communities and sects are...