Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Tuesday rejected a private member’s bill seeking to recognise proprietary rights for houses illegally built on government and community lands with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah strongly opposing it saying that its passage would “open floodgates for land grab”.
The bill, tabled by PDP MLA Wahid Para, aimed to grant ownership or transfer rights to residents currently in possession of houses built on these lands, citing the ‘right to shelter’ guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.
“How can we pass a bill that helps the land mafia and illegal encroachers? In which, it cannot be said whether they are citizens of Jammu and Kashmir or have they come here recently and built houses, but we have to give them land,” Abdullah told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
He was responding to a question on his government not supporting the private member’s bill brought by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) MLA for providing proprietary rights to those who have built houses on government land.
Earlier, Para was asked to withdraw the bill but the PDP leader attempted to invoke founder of the National Conference and former chief minister Sheikh Abdullah’s land to tiller policy and the Roshni Act of Farooq Abdullah in 2002.
In a heated exchange, Chief Minister Abdullah dismissed the proposal, drawing parallels to the highly controversial and eventually defunct ‘Roshni’ scheme and recalled that the original 2002 Roshni scheme, initiated under his father’s government, aimed to convert leasehold rights into freehold rights for people who had legal possession of land before the start of militancy.
The revenue generated was intended for power generation projects, he said.
The chief minister noted that the subsequent PDP-Congress government under Ghulam Nabi Azad removed the pre-militancy cutoff date, leading to controversies, including allegations of ‘land jihad’, and the scheme’s eventual rejection by the court, where the government “could not defend” it.
Abdullah stressed that the current bill goes far beyond Roshni, seeking to legalise illegal occupation of state land, not merely regularise existing legal leaseholds.
“This proposal of the MLA is beyond the Roshni scheme. The bill does not put a cutoff timeline,” he said, adding “if this is passed, then I will go tomorrow and build a nice house on a piece of land, and that land will be in my name. We cannot do that.”
Countering the argument by Para about the senior Abdullah and that the government’s stance was politically motivated or driven by fear of groups who used terms like ‘land jihad’, the chief minister sought the legacy of his grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah, and the historic ‘Land to the Tiller’ reforms, stating, “Land to Tiller (law implemented by senior Abdullah) was giving rights to tillers, not land grabbers”.
“There is a huge difference between land to tiller and what you are proposing,” he added.
The chief minister also clarified that the government is committed to providing housing for the landless through existing programs like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), under which government land is allotted for house construction.
He maintained, however, that the government cannot reward illegal occupation.
“We will give them five acres of land. Those who do not have a house, we will give them. But then you connect it with the fact that the one who is sitting illegally on the land… I will give him free land. We will not do that.”
Talking about the fear factor as mentioned by Para while pointing towards the BJP benches, Omar hit back saying “you (Para) said somewhere that we work because of their fear. If we had to work because of their fear, then we would have brought them to this side (Treasury bench) and worked together.”
The chief minister made it clear that it was the PDP which was bringing in the BJP and religion into discussion on his bill. “I did not use that thing to reject this bill. I said that you will open a floodgate,” he added.
Referring to Para’s remarks that the bill would also benefit the chief minister’s relatives, he said, “My relatives were not illegal occupants, they had a lease which was violated (by the other side)”.
“I would not bring such a bill even for my relatives. Then you bring religion and region into it,” he said, opposing the introduction of the bill.
After Para refused to withdraw the bill, Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather put it to vote, but it received the support of only two members. The bill was defeated by the voice vote.
