Passage of ‘enemy property’ Bill is welcome
With the lok Sabha passing the Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill on Tuesday, the controversy over inheritance rights of Indian citizens whose ancestors had crossed over to Pakistan and China and settled down there, should come to an end. The Rajya Sabha had already cleared the Bill with some amendments last week. Now the 40-year old Act is finally in place. There is some concern over whether the law, since it is to be applied retrospectively, will stand judicial scrutiny. We'll know that if and when an aggrieved party approaches a court. For the moment, it is settled that such property belongs to the Indian state, or, to be precise, with the Custodian of Enemy Property for India. This is the case in Pakistan too, where the property of those who opted for India had been confiscated by the Pakistani state. This is not tit-for-tat, of course, but “natural justice” — as Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh remarked. The issue ought to have been settled a long time ago, given that the present Bill to amend the Act had come way back in 2006. Unfortunately, Governments since then waffled and allowed the matter to fester, even leading to all sorts of litigations to flourish. A good example of this is the case of Raja Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, whose properties are spread across Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The matter is still pending with the Supreme Court. The Raja of Mahmoodabad, as he is popularly known, has been fighting in the courts for rights to the properties of his father who moved to Pakistan in 1957. The Government had in 1965 declared all his property as ‘enemy property'. His heir won the legal case in 2005, but the victory was short-lived as a 2010 Ordinance invalidated the verdict. The Raja then appealed in the apex court. The Raja of Mahmoodabad received support in his battle from various political elements, primarily because they felt that the heir had political clout in certain parts of Uttar Pradesh which could be tapped in times of need. The Raja himself had also served as a legislator, and his political inclinations were thus known.
Critics of the Bill have based their opposition on two premises. The first is that the very nomenclature ‘enemy' is repugnant. They argue that India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations and are also talking to each other at various levels — if not at the highest level for now. It is, therefore, inappropriate to use the term ‘enemy' for those who migrated to Pakistan. The second argument is that the Bill is in confrontation with the rights of an Indian citizen to the property of his or her family. Nitpicking may serve the purpose of temporary obfuscation of the issue, but it does not offer a just solution. In any case, nobody's fair rights are being impacted. Moreover, our lawmakers have in their collective wisdom adopted this law after the issue was debated threadbare.
It would be erroneous to interpret the passage of the Bill as being directed against the Raja of Mahmoodabad, although he would perhaps be the most affected. According to reports, there are more than 1,500 ‘enemy' properties spread across India, and the Raja is laying claim to over 900 of these. With the Bill being passed in Parliament, all of these should now see closure.