Supreme court issues notice to Centre on Defence land encroachment

The Supreme Court today issued notice to Centre seeking its response on a PIL seeking CBI probe into alleged encroachment and misuse of defence land across the country.

A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam agreed to hear the petition which alleged mismanagement of defence lands leading to various scams including Sukna, Adarsh Society and others.
"The issue requires our consideration," the bench said while issuing notice.

The court passed the order on a petition filed by an NGO Common Cause which also sought directionfor 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 unauthorized and commercial exploitation.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, referred to various CAG reports to highlight encroachment of defence land.

He submitted that Defence Ministry is the biggest landholder in the country with a holding of17.31 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.

"It is submitted that the prevalent mismanagement of defence lands has been the reason of several infamous land scams which have come into light recently, including Sukna land scam, Adarsh Society land Scam, Jammu & Kashmir land scam, Jodhpur land scam, Lohegaon, Pune land scam and Kandivli, Mumbai land scam.

"In most defence land scams unearthed over the past few years, Defence Estates officials have been found to be hand-in-glove with army officials and private developers," the petition said.