AHMEDABAD: The Supreme Court of India has issued notice to various authorities of the state in response to an appeal complaining against non-revision of jantri (land rates) by the state government since last decade.
A farmer from Althana in Surat, Bhikhubhai Patel, approached the apex court after the Gujarat high court junked his PIL on this subject by saying that it was not a genuine litigation. On Thursday, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan sought reply on this issue from the state authorities and posted further hearing six weeks later, said advcoate Kumaresh Trivedi.
In his appeal, the farmer cited prevailing market rates of more than a dozen villages around Surat to highlight that the government-fixed value of the land, the jantri which was fixed in 2011 and is being used at present also for official transactions, is much below the market value of the land parcels.
The petitioner has complained that though the 2011 government notification provided for regular jantri revision, the state government has not revised the jantri since April 2011. This is resulting into a huge loss worth thousands of crores for the treasury. The lawyer submitted that the jantri is not used for the purpose of computing stamp duty alone, but there are nearly 20 other laws in which transactions are dependent on the government valuation of land. They include registration of properties, computing the income tax under certain sections, fixing premium amount of land while changing its status and tenure. The non-revision of jantri rates has caused loss of huge revenue for the state government. It is also causing a great damage to private persons whose land the state authorities seek to acquire under different laws.
It was also submitted that the non-revision of jantri rates since last 10 years has given rise to a parallel economy. It is the duty of the state government to revise the land rates after valuation from time to time and it has failed in performing its duty. It should be directed to revise the jantri because processes like tax and premium collection, liquidation process, public auction and recovery process depend on it.