The government's land acquisition activities and the subtle inconsistencies that remain deep

(Suman Chowdhury Biku)

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Assuming that some lands have been acquired in favor of Roads and Highways Department in some areas. And the affected owners have taken the due compensation as per due. Later land survey activities started in that area. However, the Department of Roads and Highways did not present the supporting documents to the survey team during the field survey. And Copies of the final records have been handed over to the Land Management Authority and the Revenue Department after the completion of the survey. As a result, the revenue authorities do not know that this land has been acquired in the name of any government agency. Since the Department of Roads and Highways has never applied for namzari or paid land development tax with a copy of the gazette of the land, the revenue authorities have never had a chance to know that the land has been aquired. The only exception is that whenever a conscious officer of the revenue department finds out about this from any source, he only notes it somewhere in the record.

The problems that usually result from this are that if any of the previous owners have a dishonest attitude, they abuse it in various ways. In which, on the death of the owner of the record, successor's made a change of the original record by creating a separate holding  through mutation in the formula. Or the land acquired by the company may be re-sold to various persons on the basis of conventional records in case of long-term unused condition, or the money may be misappropriated by mortgaging it to a financial institution. We've seen a lot of incidents like changing records, selling and embezzling money at different times. Examples of two incidents that have come to the fore in recent print media investigations can be given.

The first is that the land acquired in favor of the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway in Gazipur has been embezzled by a person by giving a mortgage to a bank. The other is that some of the lands acquired in favor of PBI in Cox's Bazar have been re-acquired in the name of PBI even though they were earlier acquired in the name of Roads and Highways Department. The first thing that comes out of the above discussion is that the land acquisition has not been updated in the name of the concerned company in a timely manner, that is due to lack of proper management. According to the Integrated Land Management Policy-2014 of the Department of Roads and Highways, issued by the government, in the second chapter of this policy, in the 5th paragraph 5.3 and 5.4 of sub-paragraph 5, the acquired land is registered and collected and the land ledger is updated. There are clear guidelines on development tax payment. Analyzing the above two facts, it can be seen that in the case of the former, the following inconsistencies of mismanagement are noticeable. 

(Case Study-01)

1) The Department of Roads and Highways did not take the initiative to update the record with the copy of the gazette published after the acquisition process was finalized.

2) Since the promulgation of the Land Development Tax Ordinance 197, provision has been made to pay land development tax on land owned by government agencies. It is clear that the concerned agencies have never taken any initiative to pay land development tax.

3) As a result of the completion of the survey activities by the Survey Department after the completion of the final survey activities, the record class of the land concerned is not recorded as "road" in the final record but is recorded as the previous class.

4) The former owner of the dishonest attitude or his heirs / heirs took advantage of the opportunity to republish the record in their name and embezzled huge amount of money by taking loan from the bank as proof of ownership and possession by paying land development tax in their own name against the record.

According to the news, an investigation has been started to identify the culprits. It will be known later who is responsible for this. Maybe Udor Pindi will hit Budho on the neck without being the real culprit; Although I hope this does not happen.

If we think as usual, then we have to carry out the investigation activities keeping these issues in mind.

1) Did the acquisition take place before or after the start of the final survey in that area? If it has been done before, if the record is not presented and carried out by the concerned organization during the survey activities, then the survey team must have seen that it is on the ground ie in reality "Dhaka-Chittagong Highway", so it is definitely marked as road in mouza design. And if so, the road class land can never be recorded in the name of the survey authority. In this case, even if the concerned agency does not submit the documents in time, the surveying officer should inform the concerned department through letter for presenting the documents in the interest of the government. If this has not been done then the concerned settlement officer must be responsible for it. And if the acquisition took place after the final survey, there is no reason to blame the settlement officer. The Roads and Highways Department should be held responsible for this as they did not take the initiative to change the record without informing the land management authorities in time. The question may arise as to how the land management authority received the receipt of land development tax from the land owner, which he was able to prove to the bank authorities by submitting the ownership and possession. The land management authorities usually carry out all the activities following the records kept with them. Since the land development tax has been levied on this land, it is understood that this land is not registered as "road" class in the conventional records. Because if it was inscribed as a "road" category, it would never have taken land development tax on this category of land from the record land owner.

Therefore, it does not seem that the land management authority can have any responsibility in this case. On the other hand, if we talk about the bank authorities, those of us who think that they can easily give loans as they say, but in fact it is not. In fact, they scrutinize everything and give loans against any land.

And in this case too they must have done so. The concerned union went to the land office and checked the records, verified the rent submission, obtained a no-objection certificate from the registration department to the effect that it was not transferred in any other way or inspected the land on the spot. Then the question arises how it happened after so many things! Analyzing the above, it can be seen that since the original record was not in the name of the road department but in the name of the previous owner, there was no time to understand the issue of ownership and payment of land development tax. And since the matter of acquisition is not related to the registration department, there was no impediment in obtaining the certificate of no objection. The rest is a matter of on-the-spot inspection. If the inspecting officer had properly inspected the land, the matter of keeping the land as a road would never have been overlooked, and no such Tughlaq incident would have taken place.

According to the above, in the case of investigation, it is necessary to identify the culprits on the basis of whether the acquired land was acquired before the publication of the gazette record at the end of the final survey. If the acquisition has taken place earlier, then the previous owner of the land as well as the concerned officials of Roads and Highways Department, Settlement Authority and Bank Authority will be more or less responsible. And if the acquisition is later, then the responsibility should be on someone other than the settlement authority. (Case Study: 02) - The second incident that has recently emerged from Channel 24's investigative report is that some of the land acquired in favor of "PBI" in a mouza in the suburbs of Cox's Bazar has already been re-acquired despite being previously acquired in favor of Roads and Highways Department. This means that once the landlord received compensation from the government for this land. Moreover, due to such re-inclusion, the land owner has again received government money. The question that comes to mind is what caused such a shoot! 

First of all, let's see what the government's acquisition policy says. The important parts that are applicable are highlighted. Firstly, the Deputy Commissioner shall prepare a joint list of lands as per sub-section (1) of section 4 of the Act (Form-A) and the joint list prepared under clause (b) of sub-section (3) on the notice board of the local land office and at a convenient place in the project. Need to arrange a display. If a decision is taken to acquire any immovable property under section 5 or section 6, the Deputy Commissioner shall, accordingly, express his intention to take possession of the immovable property in the prescribed manner and issue a general notice at or near the convenient and visible place. And notice will be issued to the concerned owners and their legal heirs as per official records under section 6 to submit their claim application (Form-'B '). Subsequently, in accordance with sub-section (3) (a) of section 6, notice will be issued informing the concerned owners about the compensation (Form-'G ').

Then that is very important; The field book of spot-based joint investigation is prepared in 'D' form. Where the following information columns are included, which are completed by the Land Acquisition Branch; (1) Name / Owner / Occupant / Interested Person's Name, Father's Name, Address and Mobile No. Actual class (only in case of land owner / occupier), amount of land occupied by the person concerned, details if there is crop, number and description if there are plants, details if there is house-building, number and description if there is pond, details of other establishments / other Information etc. After this the description of the proposed land acquisition prepared by the prospective company in Form-'N '; Whose information is usually collected from the local Union Land Office. The information contained in this form is - spot number, record class of land, actual condition / nature of land, type of land use, description of surface infrastructure of land and details of crops / plants, etc. 'F'). The information contained in this form includes spot number, ledger number, land class, name and address of land owner as per latest record, names and addresses of land owners as per namjari, amount of land and namzari case no. Names and addresses of heirs of deceased owners etc. The circular issued by the Ministry has given the following instructions at the bottom of 'C'-Form: * Serial No. 5-9 will be filled by Upazila Land Office and Union Land Office.

Now let us come to the main point, the part of the land acquired in favor of the PBI which was earlier acquired for the Roads and Highways Department is not known at what time it was actually acquired. Assuming that this land was acquired in the year 1986-8. Field survey activities of BRS record were started in Chittagong-Cox's Bazar area for the first time in our country. And at the end of all the process, the record published in the form of final gazette in the year 1986-8 is handed over to the Land Management Authority, on the basis of which all the land management activities are completed.

It is common to see that when land is acquired for a highway, some additional land on both sides of the main road is acquired for future road expansion and that part is often left unused. As a result, in reality, it is not clear that the vacant part of the road at all. If the land acquired here is before the final survey, then it can be assumed that the road was not constructed during the survey and therefore the land was not reflected as a road in the records and design of the final survey. However, since this land was not reflected in the final record in the name of Roads Department, it can be assumed that this land was acquired after survey in favor of Roads Department and the land is still unused. In this case, the question is how the acquired land was re-acquired in the name of another organization? And who or what actually caused the loss of government revenue as a result of the second payment of compensation for the same land from government funds? Or why the matter did not come to the notice of anyone after going through the procedures described in the acquisition policy. The analysis shows that after the first gazette was published after the acquisition, the Roads and Highways Department did not apply to the Land Management Authority for correction of records in their name as per rules and due to non-initiative to pay land development tax as per rules, the land records remain in the name of the previous owner. 

Secondly, if the matter of acquisition proposal in the name of another company was supposed to come to the notice of the Roads and Highways Department after issuing public notices as per Forms 'A' and 'B', it did not happen. Subsequently, after giving notice to the known owner about the compensation as per the record as per form 'C', the concerned owner has already concealed the matter of receiving compensation in another LA case. In the next step, according to the 'D' form, while preparing the field book of joint investigation based on the stain, the matter was supposed to be known to the LA office in one way or another, but it remained unknown for unknown reasons. In this case, it is seen that the work was not done in accordance with the proper rules while preparing the field book. On the other hand, as per the 'e' and 'f' forms, the Upazila and Union Land Offices have provided updated information by inserting the latest information stored in the office records as the ownership of Roads and Highways Department was not reflected in the office records. Strange as it may seem, such a Tughlaq incident has taken place due to the negligence of an individual and an organization. Another question that arises is, where is the record of any land acquired? According to the data and the rules and regulations, the relevant records should be kept by the Ministry of Land, prospective agencies and the Land Acquisition Branch. In this case The Ministry of Land only finalizes the acquisition proposal after the decision has been taken by the Central Land Allocation Committee. The instructions to be adopted on the remaining matters have been given to the field level authorities in the circular issued by the Ministry. In such a case, the LA authorities should have known that the land had been acquired in the name of a different company.

As is clear from the above two incidents, only the slightest negligence, irresponsibility and failure to follow proper rules can lead to such scandals and thereby create an opportunity to satisfy the vested interests of some unscrupulous persons including loss of government revenue. In both cases there is a complete digestive tract, with the immediate aftermath of the acquisition being gazetted by the prospective company. 

In the overall analysis, it is clear that in the first case, the beneficiary owners, the Roads and Highways Department and the bank authorities and in the second case, the similar beneficiary owners, the Roads and Highways Department and the Land Acquisition Authority can be identified as the main culprits. (** The importance and amount of liability and liability of the person concerned must be determined by the respective authorities and the agency responsible for the investigation)

Apart from this, in the context of events, it seems necessary to make all the necessary changes in the rules and regulations.

1) After the publication of the final gazette related to the acquisition, the Ministry of Land must publish one copy of the Gazette on the website of the Ministry and send one copy to the concerned Deputy Commissioner.

The Deputy Commissioner must send a copy of the Gazette to the concerned Assistant Commissioner (Land) to ensure that the nomination is completed as soon as possible.

2) Upon receipt of the Gazette, the prospective company will take the initiative to change the record without any failure and will ensure that it is completed in a timely manner. If there is any legal complication in this case, the officer in charge will immediately inform the higher authorities

3) The Ministry of Land shall issue a circular informing all the Ministries of the Government to the effect that if the naming of any land acquired before the issuance of this circular in the name of any department / agency under their respective Ministry has not been completed yet, the naming application of all the lands must be forwarded. The naming process has to be completed within a day.

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Suman Chowdhury Biku.

Lyricist, Bangladesh Betar.

E-mail: scbikuland@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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