Reimagining Public Land Protection Cells

[Subrata Singh]

The judgment by Markandey Katju, J. and Gyan Sudha Mishra was a landmark judgment for the management and governance of the commons in the country. It provided a hope and momentum for the communities to get back the rights over the commons that they lost to the encroachments. The Court gave directions to all the State Governments in the country to prepare schemes for eviction of illegal/unauthorized occupants of Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat/Poramboke/ Shamlat land and these lands be restored to the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat for the common use of villagers of the village. …. The said scheme should provide for the speedy eviction of such illegal occupant, after giving him a show cause notice and a brief hearing. The judgment became a reference point for several other judgments by various lower courts leading to the development of jurisprudence around commons in the country.

The State governments and Union territories have responded to the directions of the court in providing directions for removal of encroachments, evolving mechanisms for better management and governance of the common resources and their restoration using programmes such as MGNREGA. The Court order has definitely served as a deterrent to the indiscriminate land grab and use of community lands and water bodies for the purpose of government and private development projects.

The High Court of Rajasthan (2019) was followed by the High Court in Madhya Pradesh (2021) directed the Chief Secretaries of the respective States to devise a permanent mechanism – specially designated Public Land Protection Cell (for short ‘PLPC’) for rural areas, which should be operational in every District of the State headed by the concerned District Collector for receiving complaints/representations with regard to encroachments of the common lands.

The Public Land Protection Cell should be
a) Headed by the District Collector and function under his/her direction and supervision.
b) PLPC shall get such complaints/representations and get them enquired into by deputing concerned Sub Divisional Officer/Tehsildar/Naib Tehsildar so as to verity whether or not such encroachments have actually taken place on such land.
c) If the allegations are found to be substantiated, appropriate steps in accordance with law be immediately taken for removal of the encroachments and appropriate penal action be also taken against the trespassers.
d) The complaints/representations received in the PLPC should be decided by passing speaking order, informing the respective complainant/representationist about the action taken.

While the High Court has taken this step to reduce the need to directly entertain public interest litigation on the issues of encroachments and take them only in the event of inaction on the part of the concerned PLPC, the arrangement has gone a long way to devolve and democratise legal knowledge & support for such cases. This arrangement has in true sense attempted to devolve the arbitration process related to public and common lands and water resources to the district and tehsil level. The arrangement provides for polycentricity of legal structure in which legal systems compete or overlap in a given jurisdiction, as against the monolithic legal system as the sole provider of law. The devolution occurs by the principle of jurisprudence where the PLPCs have been given powers to implement the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in Jagpal Singh & Others vs. State of Punjab & Others, (2011) 11 SCC 396 for eviction of illegal/unauthorised occupants of the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat/Poramboke/Shamlat land and the restoration to the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat for the common use of villagers of the village. With possibility of resolution of such cases at the Tehsil and/or District level allows a larger section of the population to access legal recourse at a much cheaper cost.

The mandate provided by the Supreme Court Judgment has a huge potential for enabling better governance of the common lands and the role of the Gram Sabha/Panchayats. The PLPCs formed in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh needs to play a much larger role than the adjudicatory role for the encroachments, which is the current focus. It is important to engage and re-imagine the role of the PLPCs to assist in managing almost 35% of land in Rajasthan and 25% of land in Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan has already created an architecture (prior to the Judgment in 2017) for the management of wastelands and pasturelands in the state by creating a Wasteland and Pasture land Development Board at state level and committees at district, block and Panchayat levels to play key role in removing encroachments, developing restoration plans and managing the resources for benefit of the villagers. It is important for both the institutions to complement each other in improving the governance of the common lands.

As has been highlighted in several research, the states do not have databases of pastures, various common lands and wastelands nor do they have geo-referenced spatial maps to refer to and take decisions related to the same. The institutions such as the Public Land Protection Cells should not merely be adjudicatory bodies but should evolve into bodies that can support panchayats and village institutions in managing their common resources better.

This would require broadening the scope of their engagement as bodies for registration of the commons, enabling entering them into the panchayat asset registers, enabling social audits so that the commons are intact in addition to the adjudicatory functions. Dismayed over large scale encroachment of the water bodies in TamilNadu, the Madras High Court in March 2021, directed the State Government that satellite imaging of all taluks be collated for each district and the district-wise satellite images to be maintained in the State secretariat, with the idea was that the satellite images would be the proof of the existing water bodies so that such resources are maintained and protected. The scope very well comes under the purview of the States in developing a programme/scheme for the protection of the commons and making the PLPCs responsible for the same.

This article is aimed to explore and engage in evolving the PLPCs as institutions of purpose for managing the common lands across different states rather than merely performing an adjudicatory function. As the functioning of the PLPCs are unfolding, it requires larger discussions to shape these institutions to play an important role in achieving better management of the land and water resources.

Pooja Chandran & Subrata Singh

[Author]

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