Process has begun to restore common land in Mangar: Faridabad deputy commissioner

GURUGRAM: The district is estimating the span of common lands in Mangar that have to be returned to the panchayat, the Faridabad deputy commissioner said on Thursday, after environmentalists pointed to a Supreme Court order that directed officials to restore ownership of forest and village areas that were illegally sold or partitioned in the 1970s.
Environmentalists say that around 1,500 acres of the Aravalis common land — called “shamlat deh” — was unlawfully diverted for monetary gains in the 1970s in Mangar. The hilly forested area includes parts of the Mangar Bani Sacred Grove and lies next to the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary. “The Supreme Court’s judgment seems to have been ignored and no attempt has been made to restore the Mangar common lands back to the panchayat,” said Lt Col (retd) Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi, a Gurugram-based environmentalist.
On Thursday, a group of environmentalists wrote to deputy commissioner Jitender Yadav over the issue. “Restore the situation prevailing prior to mutation no. 155 that the 6,154 bigha and 10 biswa land affected by the mutation is restored back to panchayat deh in the revenue records. Direct to stop the sale, purchase, registry, mutation of shamlat lands and cancel the partition...” the letter, also signed by Lt Col. (retd) Oberoi, said. District administration officials told TOI they have started the process to identify shamlat deh.
“We have informed the revenue department to prepare a list of land that falls in shamlat deh, and their status. We will be deciding on a case-to-case basis. We are first dealing with lands that are free of any legal cases. Haryana on June 21 had ordered the immediate closure of all the ongoing cases/ litigation pending in various revenue courts across the state or civil courts or even in the high court pertaining to shamlat deh land. We are acting as per the instructions,” said DC Yadav.
On April 7, a Supreme Court bench — hearing the State of Haryana versus Jai Singh & others case — held that the land reserved for common purposes had to be utilised by the panchayat for the present and future needs of the villagers. “No part of the land can be re-partitioned amongst the proprietors and such land would not be available for sale,’’ the bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian said.
In the early 1970s, about 6,154 bighas or around 1,500 acres of common land was fractured into “thok hardiyal” and “thok gangaram”, land categories that bring an area under revenue records and allow their transfer of ownership, the environmentalists said.
According to the Consolidation Act of 1948, pooling of land pieces and their subsequent partition can only be done on agricultural land that is fragmented. In Mangar’s case, this law was illegally used to cut into the common land even though it didn’t match any of the criteria – it was not fragmented nor was it used for agriculture.
Experts have long said that conserving Mangar is significant for it includes portions of the Sacred Grove. Its proximity to the protected Asola sanctuary also helps recharge groundwater in the region.
The NCRPB had said in 2014 that 500 metres of area from the Mangar Bani Sacred Grove should be considered a no-construction zone, according to Chetan Agarwal, a forest analyst.