Date:01/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/01/stories/2006090114760400.htm

New Delhi

`Set up land records agency'

Staff Reporter

To prevent delay in taking action against encroachers on public land

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday suggested to the Union Urban Development Ministry and the Delhi Government to set up a centralised land records agency to help the land-owning government agencies to prevent delay in taking action against encroachers on public land.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma said the Secretary of the Union Urban Development Ministry and the Chief Secretary of the Delhi Government should sit together and discuss the suggestion for putting in place such a system.

The Bench said the multiplicity of land-owning agencies in the Capital -- the Land &Development Office (L&DO), the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) -- came in the way of taking immediate action against encroachers on public land.

Passing the buck

The Bench made this suggestion when the Monitoring Committee submitted before the Court that due to multiplicity of land-owning agencies, the Government agencies keep on passing the buck to the other when it came to removal of encroachments on public land. Since there was no centralised system for land records in the Capital, the Court should issue directions for setting up one.