Jammu, Nov 2 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday described the reaction by many politicians to the new land laws in the union territory as 'uncharitable and result of misapprehension'.
Rohit Kansal, government spokesman, said at a press conference on Monday, "A number of old laws, at least 11 of them, have been repealed and four major laws have been modified. The old legislations were outdated, regressive and anti-people."
Reacting to reactions by mainstream politicians, who have said the new land laws have put J&K on sale, the spokesman said, "Many of these reactions are uncharitable.
"For example, some political parties have said that J&K is now on sale. Some others have said there is no protection with regard to land on similar lines as has been given to people by some other states.
"We think there are lots of misapprehension, misinformation and lack of clarity on these issues. The old land laws were probably a product of their times and may have been appropriate to the times when those were introduced.
"The old land laws were essentially meant to serve an old agrarian rural economy. Quite obviously, many of those laws had been outdated and obsolete.
"For example the big lands abolition act fixed a ceiling of 182 kanals, but it was superseded by the agrarian reforms act of 1976 which redefined the law and yet the two laws continued to coexist."
Kansal further said: "The Agrarian Reforms Act 1976 is 44 years old and yet this act prohibited selling of any land that was available to the tiller and even after a generation has past, the land could not be sold or transferred. As a consequence of this, you had large number of benami transactions.
"There was a need to straighten up, clean up the system and provide a set of simple land laws which would prevent unnecessary litigation and prevent discretionary interpretation of laws which leaves opportunities for the vested interests."
As per the new land laws enacted on October 27 by the Ministry of Home Affairs, any citizen of India can buy land in J&K, except land reserved for agricultural purposes.
Source: IANS
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