Uttarakhand High Court decision on land purchase by outsiders in the State

UPP may move Supreme Court 

Nainital,Dehradun September 23The regional parties of the state, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) and the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP), are unhappy with the High Court’s decision allowing any citizen of India to purchase 12.5 acres of agricultural land in the state.
The landmark judgment was delivered by a Division Bench of the High Court at Nainital on Thursday afternoon. The bench comprised Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice UC Dhyani.
Reacting to the decision, both the regional parties have urged the Major-General BC Khanduri (retd)-led BJP government in the state to take immediate steps to prevent a large-scale purchase of land by outsiders in the state.
Talking to The Tribune, senior UKD leader Narayan Singh Jantwal said: “The government can either approach a senior-level of the judiciary against the decision or it can bring in a fresh ordinance in the matter. Luckily, the Assembly session is scheduled to begin on September 27. The government must bring in an ordinance on a priority basis during this session”.
The president of the UPP, Puran Tewari, said the decision would have a negative impact on the residents of Uttarakhand.
He has also demanded that the state government take immediate steps to protect the interests of the citizens of the state. The party has taken it upon itself to approach the High Court and even the Supreme Court on this issue.
In a statement, Tewari has stated that the party is disillusioned with the judgment and it would consult legal experts before taking up the issue at the level of the High Court and the Supreme Court. Tewari has stated that the judgment is a result of poor representation of facts by the government lawyers in the case.
Both the parties have stated that there are stringent laws in place in all the Himalayan states to protect the interests of the indigenous people residing there.
“I fail to understand what was illegal in the existing law. In the North East, even the customary laws of the people residing there have been upheld by the Indian government. The issue before us today is to protect the farming in the hills and also to take care of the interest of the small and marginal farmer residing here,” said Jantwal.
Replying to a query on the rights of a resident of the state to practise agriculture in the state, he said a clause providing a resident the said rights could have been added to the existing law but throwing the land open to any resident of India is not in the interest of the people of the state.
Petitioner Jaswant Singh’s lawyer VK Kohli had contended that the existing norms were very much against the residents of Uttarakhand itself. “Suppose on September 12, 2003, a person while being a resident of Uttarakhand did not possess any agricultural land. He and his coming generations were prohibited from purchasing more than 250 square metres of agricultural land.
On the other hand, if any one, whether a resident of the state or an outsider possessed even 100 square metres of agricultural land on the given date, he was eligible to purchase 12.5 acres. Our contention was against this discrimination,” Kohli said while talking to The Tribune.
The UPP has now contended that while stringent laws remain in place in other Himalayan states, why is Uttarakhand allowed to become a haven for land mafia and builders.