Bombay High Court Expresses Alarm At Over 2 Lakh Encroachments On Grazing Lands, Asks State To Prepare Roadmap

"The most alarming feature is found in the third table, which suggests that there are 2,22,153 illegal constructions on Gairan lands and the approximate encroached area measures 10,089 hectares", the court observed referring to an affidavit filed by the state as per its earlier directions.

The court had taken suo motu cognizance of encroachments on gairan lands while dismissing another Public Interest Litigation about the issue in June 2022. The court had found in that PIL that the petitioner was pursuing personal cause against a lawyer in the garb of the PIL.

However, the court said that it cannot turn a blind eye to large scale encroachments on gairan lands belonging to Government and took suo moto cognizance of the same.

In an earlier hearing, the court had directed the state to inform the court regarding compliance of judgment in Jagpal Singh and Ors. v. State of Punjab and Ors. in which the Supreme Court directed the State Governments to prepare schemes for eviction of unauthorised occupants of the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat land.

The affidavit, filed by R. S. Chavan, Joint Secretary of the Revenue and Forest Department, stated that 24,513 encroachments on Gairan lands have been removed between July 12, 2011 and September 15, 2022. Further, 12,652 encroachments were regularised till July 12, 2011.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Madhav Jamdar noted that the affidavit does not provide the basis on which the 12,652 structures were regularized. Further, it does not indicate what steps the state government is contemplating to remove the 2,22,153 encroachments and free 10,089 hectares of land.

There has only been a partial compliance of the Apex Court directions in Jagpal Singh v. State of Punjab, the court said.

The court asked the state government to file another affidavit indicating on what basis the 12,652 encroachments were regularized. It further directed that the state government shall not regularize any further encroachment except in the manner directed by the Supreme Court in Jagpal Singh.

The State has also been asked to submit a road-map so as to facilitate removal of all encroachments by the end of this year.

The court posted the matter on November 17, 2022.

Case title – High Court on its Own Motion v. State of Maharashtra and Ors.