J&K govt declares Roshni Act 'null & void', to retrieve land within six months

The Jammu and Kashmir government has declared all actions under the Roshni Act or the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 'null an void'. This gives the state the power to reclaim 20 lakh kanals of land which were transferred to existing occupants.

The administration has decided to retrieve the land within six months.

The order was issued by the J&K Department of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs and approved by the Lieutenant Governor of the J&K government. The Principal Secretary, Revenue Department has been asked to pass the order declaring all the actions taken under the act as 'void ab initio'.

“He [the officer] shall ensure that all the mutations done in furtherance of the Roshni Act are annulled. He shall also work out a plan to retrieve the large tracts of State land vested under the Act, 2001 in a time-bound manner. He shall also work out the modalities and plan to evict encroachers from such State land and retrieve it within a period of six months,” the order stated.

For the uninitiated, through a law called the  Roshni Act - the former state government legalised the ownership of government lands by existing occupants by selling them at throwaway prices.

Now the order states that 'complete identities of all influential persons, including Ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, government officials, police officers, businessmen, etc., and their relatives or persons' who has benefitted under the act will be made public.

The Roshni Act was implemented during Farooq Abdullah's regime. The act was aimed at earning ₹25,000 crore by transferring 20 lakh kanals of State land to existing occupants against market rates.

However, in 2014, a CAG report stated that only ₹76 crore was earned by transferring land between 2007 and 2013.

A detailed report prepared by Zee News earlier in the year revealed that the practice which has been going on for the last 17 years, is touted to be a ploy by the proponents of 'Islamic Jihad' to change the demography of the region.

Sources claim that under the Act, 25,000 people settled in the Jammu region - out of which, 90% were from the Muslim community.

Smelling a conspiracy to replace the Hindu majority population of Jammu, a petition was been filed in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court regarding the matter.

An organisation named  'Ikkjutt Jammu' claimed that under the previous state governments, Muslim religious organisations, empowered by the aforementioned legislation laid claim to 50 lakh kanals of forest land. It also added that more than 100 mosques have been built in Jammu city, citing that there were only three mosques in 1994.

According to 2001 Census, the Hindu population in Jammu was around 65 per cent and Muslim population was around 31 per cent, but in 2011 census, the Hindus population in the Jammu region declined by about 3 per cent while the Muslim population increased by 3 per cent. 

The legislation was scrapped in 2018 by the then Jammu and Kashmir governor, Satyapal Malik. “This enactment stands repealed on 28 November 2018, by the State Administrative Council (SAC) led by the governor annulling the Roshni Scheme after concluding that it had not served ‘its purpose’ and was ‘no longer relevant in the present context’,” an order from the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had said.