HC seeks info on enforcing land grab law

 The High Court on Friday sought to know how the government was enforcing the Karnataka Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2011, which was officially enforced in 2014 by the State government.

The State government replied that it is yet to collect the information as the Assembly session was on.  A division bench comprising K L Manjunath and Justice Raghavendra S Chauhan was hearing a PIL seeking directions from the court to recover lakhs of acres of government land which has been encroached upon by private parties including farmers.

The State government submitted that in the month of February, nearly 11,400 acres of government land was recovered from encroachers all over the State. Of the 11 lakh acres of land encroached by villagers, nearly 76,000 acres have been recovered, it said.

During the hearing, the petitioner's counsel Sajan Poovayya contended that the government was recovering only small encroachments in rural areas and were not actually concentrating on big area encroachments.

The bench observed that many of the farmers were not aware about the measurement of their land and the land that they have encroached upon as there is not proper survey conducted. The bench directed the State government to file a status report in the next hearing on
April 28.