Gram panchayat land can be sold, rules HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 26

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that gram panchayat land can be sold.

“Prima facie it appears to us that government instructions cannot be static or mechanical to hold that in no circumstance gram panchayat land can be sold. On this analogy, the gram panchayat cannot allot even residential plots to landless persons at a nominal price,” a Division Bench has asserted.

The ruling came in the case of Partap Singh. Taking up his petition, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Jaspal Singh observed that the petitioner in the second round of litigation was struggling to protect the possession over six marlas in Khodma village of Mahendragarh district.

He had constructed a house on land belonging to the gram panchayat but an eviction order was passed against him on a petition by a villager. The Bench added the gram panchayat had apparently passed a resolution in December, 2011, to allot the land to the petitioner for residential purposes.

Taking notice of the resolution, the court directed the Mahendragarh DC to consider the resolution and pass an appropriate order. The DC then turned down the petitioner’s claim on July 18 on the ground that the gram panchayat had now passed a fractured resolution; and some of the panches did not support the petitioner’s claim.

Besides, the state government had issued instructions dated June 15, 2012, under which panchayat land could not be sold to private persons or commercial enterprises.

Taking up the matter, the Bench asserted the instructions could not be static. Moreover, the petitioner belonged to a backward class. “Unless there is a positive finding that he owns a residential house of his own, will it not be contrary to the very philosophy of inclusive growth or social engineering to deny the petitioner the only shelter which he or his family might be having? We further direct the Principal Secretary, Department of Development and Panchayats, to entertain the petition to elaborate the object, import and purpose of the government instructions…”