Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra is visiting Delhi on Tuesday to convince Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the need to expedite the process of sending the Karnataka Land Grabbers’ (Prevention) Bill to the President for his assent. The Bill provides for setting up fast-track courts to try cases of encroachment of government land.
Disclosing this to presspersons in Bangalore, Mr. Jayachandra said the Bill had been adopted by the State legislature in 2007 itself and since then it had been pending with the Union government. He said the government would be in a better position to act sternly against land grabbers if it gets Presidential assent.
Already, tough measures were being taken against land grabbers and he had instructed officials concerned to initiate time-bound action regarding clearing government lands of encroachments. Seeking to allay apprehensions about the seriousness of the action being initiated against land grabbers, he said such an action was being monitored by the Karnataka High Court.
At the same time, he said there was a need to increase the staff strength in certain departments to equip the administrative machinery to act against land grabbers.
Mr. Jayachandra also clarified that the government never intended to curtail the powers of the Governor with respect to granting remission of sentence to prisoners, who have served more than 14 years of jail term and maintained good conduct.
(The Hindu)
