E-Paper
Status check: Kot, Bandhwari
Investors buying land in the hill areas of Kot are taking a risk as exact location of plots or land for sale have not been identified and consolidation cannot happen here as per a 2015 NGT order
Located to the south of Mangar in the Aravallis in Faridabad, Kot village falls within the 500 m buffer zone. It has more or less followed the same trajectory as its neighbour Mangar, but land has not been consolidated here and, therefore, plots have not been allocated. Only undivided shares in the hill can be bought and sold. Most of the Kot hill land has already been classified as forest area following orders of the Supreme Court in the MC Mehta case in 2004.
A decision has yet to be taken on the forest status of the remaining part of the hill.
The problem is, as only undivided shares can be bought because land has not been consolidated, investors who are buying individual shares from villagers are taking a huge risk because Kot is still shamlat or community land and the villagers are only selling their share in ratio to their agriculture land holding.
As per reports, a case for deciding the title of the common land of Kot is pending in the revenue court of the deputy commissioner of Faridabad to determine whether it should stay with the panchayat or go to the individual village proprietors.
It is also reported that following the Jagpal Singh judgment of the SC in 2012, the government of Haryana issued instructions banning the registration of sale of panchayat and shamlat lands.
Land in Bandhwari hills, which lie to the west of Mangar and fall in Gurgaon district, have panchayat ownership. Shares in the hills were also sold in the 1980s, but the Haryana government in the mid-2000s restored panchayat ownership, citing that the privatisation decision was faulty.
According to environmental lawyer Rahul Choudhary, investors buying land in the hill areas are again taking risks as exact location of plots or land for sale have not been identified and consolidation cannot happen here as per a 2015 NGT order.
–Vandana Ramnani
