SC asks J&K HC to decide on Dec 21 pleas seeking review of its verdict scrapping Roshni Act

Srinagar: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to decide on December 21 the petitions seeking review of its verdict scrapping the Roshni Act which conferred proprietary rights to occupants of State land.

The apex court said that it will hear in January last week the appeals filed before it challenging the October 9 verdict of the high court.

A bench headed by Justice N V Ramana considered the oral assurance of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Jammu and Kashmir administration, that no coercive action will be taken against those petitioners who have approached the top court in the matter as they are not ‘land grabbers or unauthorised people’.

Mehta told the apex court that Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has already filed a review petition in the high court and said that the authority is ‘not against bonafide and common people who are not land grabbers’.

The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose, said that pendency of appeals before the apex court would not come in the way of the high court in deciding the review petitions pending there.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court had on October 9 declared the Roshni Act ‘illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable’, and ordered a CBI probe into the allotment of land under this law.

The Roshni Act was enacted in 2001 with the twin objective of generating resources for financing power projects and conferment of proprietary rights to the occupants of State land.