Anushka Mansharamani
The Supreme Court on 10th December decided to refrain from examining the appeals in the Roshni Act as parallel proceedings on the same subject matter cannot take place in the J&K High Court.
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the alleged scam.
The review is scheduled to be on 21st December by the J&K High Court.
A bench of Justice NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Aniruddha Bose of the Supreme Court said, “Until and unless review petitions are decided we can’t do much. Let the review be decided by the High Court on December 21.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated that no action will be taken against the appellants and that in the review petition filed, a clear contrast has been drawn between the encroachers and lawful leaseholders.
The appeals made to the Supreme Court of India were made by those beneficiaries who could lose their land and could be highly affected by the J&K High Court judgment order, retrieving the land granted under the Act.
The Jammu and Kashmir State Land Act, 2001 (Roshni Act) came to light after the J&K High Court had ordered a probe into the scam.
Top government authorities and influential people were grabbing land, and therefore, the validity of the law was challenged before the High Court.
SC Pandey, Principal Accountant General of Audit, J&K, stated that there has been a “massive scam” running into several thousands of crores in the implementation of the Roshni Act.
According to the order passed by the High Court, the act was illegal and unacceptable. There was a lack of analysis, evaluation, and violated Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
Due to various doubts and observations made by the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, the court decided to instruct the CBI to take over the probe.
After the order was passed on 9th October there were review petitions filed against the order.
The Supreme Court has still not decided to review the appeals as the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir is still to decide whether to review the order passed or not.
Therefore, the Supreme Court of India would wait for the review to take place on 21st December and will schedule a hearing in the third week of January.