The official notice was issued by the Nagpur High Court Division on December 22. Sattar is caught in the crossfire after passing a private individual’s claim to “Gairan”(grazing) land.
The Maharashtra minister Abdul Sattar has received a notice from the Bombay High Court for allowing the land reserved for public “Gairan” (grazing) to be used for the benefit of private individuals to keep it as a possession. Clearly disregarding the civil court’s order, which favoured the land to be used by the public.
This notice was previously issued by the Nagpur bench of the High Court. which was issued on December 22, the details came down on Saturday.
Nagpur bench was hearing a petition case against Mr. Sattar, which he passed in June 2022 while being the revenue minister.
The petitioner claimed that Sattar granted land totalling 33 acres to a private person for their possession. which was meant to be used by the public for the purpose of grazing.
The authority over the land was given by the minister even after the claim of the alleged keeper was rejected by the civil appellate court.
The High Court decided that the obvious guilty party is Sattar himself for approving the order knowing that additional district judge Washim had previously denied the private person’s request to possess grazing land.
The court further passed judgements on the case stating: “We find the issue raised in this petition, which casts doubt on how the public utility land is permitted to be hijacked by private individuals, requires examination by this court,” the petition reads.
Afterwards the court acclaimed, “We would direct the petitioners to deposit in this court an amount of Rs. 50,000 to demonstrate their bona fields while issuing notice.”
The Washim Court even passed serious comments on Sattar and the involved party stating, “they certainly were out to usurp government land.”
The official decision is yet to be taken by the court and it is adjourned till January 2024.
High Court decision over similar cases
Similar case of land dispute was registered in front of the court. Ekanth Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra, decided to give private individuals access to land that was intended for slum dwellers while he was a working minister under Uddhav Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi(MVA) party government.
The bench of court ordered status quo on this decision on December 14.
Anand Parchure, a ‘friend of the court’, informed the High Court that Shinde, while serving as the MVA government’s minister of urban development, ordered the Nagpur Improvement Trust to give away land purchased for a housing project for slum dwellers to 16 private individuals.
On December 20, Shinde said, that he had approved an order as the minister of urban development for 2021, noting that charges should be collected for the plot in question with the government regulations but he declined to lower or cut the fee of the land
However, The CM had stated that on December 16 2022, he annulled his earlier order after learning that the land allotment was still pending in court.
The HC acknowledged the matter as closed and accepted Shinde’s recent withdrawal of his decision.
