Pune: The Bombay high court held that the state was within its right to divert gairan lands (govt-owned common land reserved for free grazing of village cattle) towards public purpose/projects of the central or state govts, especially when it invoked Section 40 of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (MLRC), having an overriding effect on its all other provisions.A high court bench of Justice Manish Pitale and Justice Shreeram V Shirsat on July 10 dismissed a writ petition of the gram panchayat of Nere village in Mulshi taluka of Pune district and two villagers challenging the district collector’s orders of June 13, 2025, that allotted two gairan land parcels of 4 hectares and 24 ares, and 3 hectares 4 ares to Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA). The latter is developing a housing project for the economically weaker section under the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) – 2.0 scheme.The bench said the panchayat’s insistence that its consent resolution was an absolutely essential condition for these allotments did not appear to be supported by the statutory scheme. Also, the petitioner’s reliance on a govt resolution (GR) of July 12, 2011, issued in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling the same year mandating such consent, did not hold good as the present case was distinguishable from the case dealt with by the SC, it said.On the contention that the gram panchayat’s name was mentioned in the “other rights” column in the revenue records related to the subject lands, the bench noted, “It is undisputed that the respondent state is the owner of the said land and therefore, merely because the name of the petitioner gram panchayat is mentioned in the ‘other rights’ column, cannot take its case any further.”Apart from the GR and the SC ruling, the petitioners, represented by advocate Abhijit Kulkarni, had cited Section 22A of the MLRC, which restrains diversion of gairan lands barring certain conditions. They also pointed out that the then state revenue minister during a meeting on Feb 15, 2022, had directed allotment of the land to the gram panchayat for the welfare projects like a rural hospital, cultural center for women and schools. The collector could not have changed his stance by suddenly allotting the land parcels to MHADA, they claimed.The bench observed that the regional plan showed the subject land parcels as reserved for “public housing”. The state govt, by allotting these to MHADA for the PMAY-2.0 scheme, has ensured utilisation of the said land patcels for the purpose for which they are reserved. “Gram panchayat cannot claim any crystallised right merely on the basis of the minutes of the meeting on Feb 15, 2022, recorded in the chamber of the then revenue minister,” the bench said.The bench vacated its interim order of March 4, 2026, that directed a status quo after the state had submitted that it had acquired the land parcels for the housing project. On July 10, the bench rejected the petitioner’s prayer to extend this interim order for a specific period of time.
