In the courts
From Supreme Court to JK high court there are petitions pending asking for the review of the earlier court decision about the Roshni act and it has opened a ponderosa box as thousands of people are getting affected in Jammu and Kashmir by this order. The Jammu and Kashmir High Court had on October 9 declared the Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable”, and ordered a CBI probe into the allotment of land under this law.
The Roshni Act was enacted in 2001 with the objective of generating resources for financing power projects and conferment of proprietary rights to the occupants of state land. During the hearing conducted through video-conferencing, the Supreme Court said that to avoid conflicting orders, the petitioners should go to the Jammu and Kashmir high court for review in this order.
“All petitioners should approach the review bench and all of them should be heard by the high court. We will direct accordingly,” the bench observed.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the Jammu and Kashmir administration had made it clear that encroachers and land-grabbers could not claim to be exempted from the high court order; however he said that those common people who have benefited by this act would not be touched unless JK high court will not give any fresh direction in this matter. Many petitions are pending in Supreme Court also as the JK high court has been challenged and these petitioners have claimed that JK high court “was wrong in scrapping the Act” and a number of Roshni Act beneficiaries had not even been heard by the high court, while giving such direction.
