The establishment of a Public Land Protection Cell is mandated to address land encroachments effectively, following Supreme Court guidelines.

ORDER :

VINIT KUMAR MATHUR, J.

1. The Hon’ble Division Bench of this Court in D.B. Civil Writ Petition (P.I.L.) No.10819/2018-Jagdish Prasad Meena & Ors.Vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors. vide order dated 30.01.2019 has directed as under:-

“In order therefore to provide a pan-Rajasthan solution to this ever persisting problem, we deem it appropriate to direct the Chief Secretary of the State to devise a permanent mechanism, which should be operational in every District of the State where the concerned District Collector should be required to periodically notify for the information of the general public to lodge the complaints/representations with regard to such encroachments with a specially designated Public Land Protection Cell (for short ‘PLPC’) for rural areas. The PLPC should be headed by District Collector and function under his direction and supervision. The PLPC shall get such complaints/representations enquired into by deputing concerned Sub Divisional Officer/Tehsildar/Naib Tehsildar so as to verify whether or not such encroachments have actually taken place on such land. If the allegations are found to be substantiated, appropriate steps in accordance with law be immediately taken for removal of the encroachments and appropriate penal action be also taken against the trespassers. The complaints/representations received in the PLPC should be decided by passing speaking order, informing the respective complainant/representationist about the action taken. This would obviate the necessity of such complainants/representationists approaching this Court directly by way of public interest litigation. If this practice is put in place, this Court would not be inclined to directly entertain such public interest litigation or would do so only in the event of in action on the part of the concerned PLPC.

The PLPC aforementioned shall also keep in view the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in Jagpal Singh & Others Vs. State of Punjab & Others,(2011) 11 SCC 396 wherein all the State Governments of the country were directed that they should prepare schemes for eviction of illegal/unauthorised occupants of the GramSabha/Gram Panchayat/Poramboke/ Shamlat land and the same must be restored to the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat for the common use of villagers of the village. The said scheme should provide for the speedy eviction of such illegal occupants, after giving them a show cause notice and a brief hearing. It was further held therein that long duration of the illegal encroachment/occupation of land or huge expenditure in making construction thereon or political connections of trespassers are no justification for regularising such illegal occupation. Regularisation should be permitted only in exceptional cases where lease has been granted under some government notification e.g. to landless labourers or members of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes or where there is already a school, hospital, dispensary, ‘shamshan’,‘kabristan’ or other public utility of the like nature on the land. Observations of the Supreme Court in Jagpal Singh(supra) thus leaves no manner of doubt that removal of encroachment on all such land is a rule and regularisation an exception and that too in extremely limited number of cases, which only the Government can do by appropriate notification of the government and no other authority.

List this matter on 14.03.2019.

A copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretary of the State of Rajasthan, Government Secretariat, Jaipur, who shall ensure compliance of this order and do the needful for creation of Public Land Protection Cell (PLPC) for rural areas.”

2. After arguing for sometime, counsel for the petitioner in the light of the directions contained in the matter of Jagdish Prasad Meena (supra) wants the petition to be disposed of with liberty to file representation/application before the Public Land Protection Cell/District Collector-Churu with regard to the encroachments of which reference has been made in the present wr