SC issues notice to Centre over encroachments of Defence land across India

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 20

 The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a petition seeking direction to it to evict encroachers from 12,000 acres of Defence land across India.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar asked the government to respond to the petition filed by advocate SN Bhardwaj who alleged that about 46,000 illegal structures had come up on military lands in the country.

The court wants details of action taken to evict the encroachers as the petitioner alleged that commercial activities were being carried on by encroachers on defence land and the encroachments were increasing day-by-day for the authorities were not paying any heed to it.

The petition mentioned a Public Accounts Committee report of 2013-14 that had recommended creation of a single unified authority to look into the management and protection of defence lands, fast track work on recovery of encroached land and proper monitoring of field officers entrusted with the responsibility to manage defence land.

Earlier, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had told the Lok Sabha in February last year that a total of 10,125.63 acres of defence land is under encroachment across the country.

According to details of the land under encroachment, maximum area was in Uttar Pradesh where 2882.89 acres of land has been encroached.  Madhya Pradesh follows at 1515.82 acres and Maharashtra with 1009.85 acres of land, the Defence Minister said. 

The Supreme Court had in March 2014 issued a notice to the Centre seeking its response on another PIL filed by NGO Common Cause that sought a CBI probe into alleged encroachment and misuse of defence land across the country. The petition alleged mismanagement of defence lands resulting into Sukna land scam and Adarsh Society scam.

The petition had also demanded a comprehensive audit of defence lands to recover the lands under encroachment as well as the losses to the public exchequer on account of its unauthorised and commercial exploitation.

According to the petitioner, Defence Ministry is the biggest landholder in the country with a holding of 17.31 lakh acres, out of which approximately 1.57 lakh acres are situated within the 62 notified cantonments and about 15.96 lakh acres are outside these cantonments.