Court questions Ministry, Army for holding surplus land of over 15 lakh acres
The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the Ministry of Defence and Army for holding surplus land of over 15 lakh acres for armed forces on a PIl that brought the matter to light and demanded CBI enquiry into such massive acquisition.
“Ministry of Defence is the biggest landholder in the country with a land bank of 17.31 lakh acres, of which approximately 1.57 lakh acres are situated within the 62 notified Cantonments and about 15.96 lakh acres are outside these cantonments,” said a PIl filed by NGO Common Cause.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan who argued the matter before a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that “prevalent mismanagement of Defence land has been the reason for several recent infamous land scams -- including Sukhna land scam, Adarsh Society land scam, Jammu & Kashmir land scam, Jodhpur land scam, lohegaon, Pune land scam and Kandivilu, Mumbai land scam.”
According to the petition, in the scams reported till date, the Defence Estate Officers had been hand-in-glove with Army officials and private developers. This was evident from the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General filed from time to time.
Issuing notice to the Ministry of Defence, Army and CBI, the court posted the matter after four weeks. It also prayed for an independent task force to undertake a comprehensive audit of Defence lands, in order to assess the losses caused by the unauthorised use and commercial exploitation of defence land.
The NGO even demanded setting up a broad-based expert committee to recommend scientific and productive management of Defence land and formulate need-based acquisition of land for Defence purposes. The land not needed by the personnel could be released and utilised to meet the needs of socio-economic development of the country, the petition added.
Bhushan alleged that the state of affairs was so shocking that the Directorate of Defence Estates did not maintain any records of the land under its possession. Taking advantage of this lacuna, private parties had encroached on Defence land.