The Haryana government’s transfer of serving IAS officer Ashok Khemka from his post as director general of consolidation of holdings in the state’s revenue department has caused a great deal of concern. Mr Khemka had opened a series of investigations into transfers in his state of panchayat-held land to private individuals and companies. There is little doubt that this series of investigations into what Mr Khemka said, in a letter to the chief secretary reproduced by The Indian Express, are “thousands of acres of panchayat land, [which after being ] illegally mutated in favour of owners, were subsequently partitioned into small parcels and sold” would have caused a severe problem to many of the beneficiaries of such transactions, which included, Mr Khemka added, “industrial houses and senior officers”.
Mr Khemka contends that one such beneficiary of a similar deal was Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Mr Vadra’s company made outsize profits on the sale of three-plus acres of land to the giant real estate developer DLF after the Haryana government issued a land-use notification. Mr Khemka has raised a series of relevant questions about this transaction — such as why the Haryana government confirmed the change-of-use licence in the name of Mr Vadra’s company even after he had sold it to DLF. It appears that Mr Vadra applied for the renewal of a development licence under his company’s name even after he had sold the land; if so the Haryana government must immediately look into the matter to see if Mr Vadra should be held accountable and whether the cancellation of the land transfer – Mr Khemka’s last act in office – was the right response.
That Mr Khemka contends that many thousands of acres of panchayat land have been so treated should be a wake-up call. His transfer within a few days of opening investigations into a large number of transactions, many with high-profile and well-connected beneficiaries, is likely to be seen as suggesting a nexus between the administration in Haryana and the many who have benefited from misusing land consolidation laws. This problem has been bubbling under the surface for some considerable length of time. In a judgment last year, in the matter of Jagpal Singh vs Punjab, the Supreme Court went so far as to say that “in many states government orders have been issued by the state government permitting allotment of gram sabha land to private persons and commercial enterprises on payment of some money. In our opinion all such government orders are illegal, and should be ignored”. Mr Khemka has also pointed out, in an interview to The Times of India, that the Punjab and Haryana High Court has also quashed about 23 orders that “misuse Section 42 of the consolidation act to transfer panchayat land worth hundreds of crores to newly-formed companies with paid-up capital of as little as Rs 1 lakh”.
The outrage surrounding Mr Vadra’s outsize profits must lead to genuine reform of land control laws. Encroachment on and the illegal sale of land held by a village in common are an important source of windfall gains to real estate developers and the well-connected. This endless faucet of illegal profits must be turned off.