Absence of special court renders Act against land grabbing toothless

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Victims of land grabbing in the state could have got justice had the successive governments fully implemented the Assam Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2010.

Passed by the Assam Legislative Assembly, the Bill for the Act got the President of India's assent on October 28, 2011. Subsequently, the State government notified the Act on November 18, 2011.

The purpose of the Act is to ensure justice to the victims of land grabbing. The Act has some provisions that enable victims of land grabbing to lodge complaints before a district-level special tribunal. The defines that a special district-level tribunal is a court of district and sessions judge.

If a petitioner is not satisfied with the judgment of the special district-level tribunal, he can approach the state-level special court. The special court should comprise the chairman and two members. However, neither the Congress nor the BJP governments since 2011 formed the special court.

The last BJP-led state government appointed two members for the state-level special court but stopped short of making it functional. The file for the special court is in the cold storage at Dispur now.

The responsibility for implementing the Act is of the Revenue and Disaster Management department. The legislators enacted the Act for a noble cause. However, the absence of the state-level special court has made the Act toothless.

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