| Custodian General’s notification disturbs POJK refugees | | Displaced people own 6,80,850 Kanals of evacuee property land in Jammu | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 4: The Custodian General’s latest notification which makes it mandatory for allottees to take consent from his office to build any structure over the evacuee property land has disturbed thousands of refugees from Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) as they own over 6,80,850 Kanals of such land across Jammu province.
The latest notification of Custodian General reads, “Section 9-A of the J&K Evacuee’s (Administration of Property) Act Svt. 2006 sets down that no person possessing or occupying any evacuee property whether as an allottee or otherwise, shall erect or re-erect any building with prior sanction in writing of the Custodian, and where any building is erected or re-erected without the sanction or in contravention of any condition subject to which such sanction has been granted, such erected or re-erected portion of building shall be deemed to be evacuee property under the Act and the persons erecting, re-erecting, possessing or occupying the property whether as allottee or otherwise shall have no right or claim for ownership of such erected portion or any compensation in lieu of thereof”.
However, the One Hundred Eighty Third Report of Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, tilted, “Problems being faced by Refugees and Displaced Persons in J&K”, presented to Rajya Sabha and tabled at Lok Sabha on 22nd of December explained that the 26319 POJK families settled in Jammu and Kashmir owned over 6.80 lakhs Kanal of Evacuee Property land.
The paragraph 1.3 on page 16 of the report titled, “POJK Refugees of 1947”, the sub-section (c) Rehabilitation package sanctioned in 2008, reads, “.....According to report of State Government of J&K, in order to rehabilitate the POJK displaced persons of 1947, about 6,80,850 Kanals of Evacuee Property (EP) land and about 2,43,000 kanals of State Land were allotted to these families by the state government.
Explaining about the allotted Evacuee Property, the report clarifies, “The State Government has also granted occupancy right in respect of Evacuee Property land allotted to these displaced persons. As per the occupancy rights given, the displaced persons will have 99 percent share and the persons who have migrated to POJK will have 1 percent share.”
Now if go by the notification of Custodian General, all POJK allottees have to take permission for raising any construction. “Majority of POJK refugees have raised their houses without taking permission from Custodian General and as per law, these properties shall be deemed Evacuee Property and the violators could be penalized”, a refugee leader said, adding that whenever a POJK refugees got the Evacuee Property land registered on his name, it got registered under a special category “Maroosi Intkal”, which means, “the owner has absolute occupancy and tenancy rights but not absolute right over the EP land”.
He further said that many POJK refugees have been residing in the houses of Evacuee Property in the city areas and as per the law all these refugee allottees, would have to face the music for various types of violations.
Custodian General Rajesh Sharma said that the notification only explained the standing position of the law and constructions raised over the Evacuee Property.
When asked about the allotment of over 6.8 Lakh kanals of land and Evacuee Property houses to POJK refugees, Sharma said that if the Evacuee Property land or houses were acquired by the government from the Custodian General and then handed over to the POJK refugees then the land and houses didn’t come under the Evacuee Property. |
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