Hyderabad: Thousands of farmers and property owners are seeking removal of over two lakh acres from the prohibited list (land/property restricted from registration or transfer). Most of these property owners are from the Hyderabad metropolitan area, including Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri, Sangareddy, Yadadri-Bhongiri and Vikarabad districts. Official sources said nearly 20,000 applications are pending with district collectors across the state, and the revenue department has directed the officers to dispose of them within 45 days.The majority of the land parcels on the prohibited list were tagged as govt land, assigned, waqf, endowment, Bhoodan and ceiling land, while some are on the list due to court cases. The revenue department has now directed the collectors to clear the pending applications seeking removal from the prohibited list within 45 days from now.Apart from the 2.20 lakh acres, another 2-3 lakh acres, being claimed as patta land, could be on the prohibited list in various districts, according to sources. “Many of them don’t even know that their land is on the prohibited list. They discover it only when they approach revenue officials to sell their property,” officials said.Revenue and registration and stamps departments took up an exercise a few months ago and revised the prohibited list, which is popularly known as Section 22-A (of the Registration Act) properties, barring certain categories of land parcels from registration. The allegations were that district collectors had sent the list without conducting any survey, field inspection or other verification processes.“Of the 2.20 crore acres land in Telangana, 93 lakh acres are on the prohibited list. Of them, nearly 66 lakh acres are forest land, 24 lakh acres assigned land, about 3.10 lakh acres waqf and endowment land and 1.75 lakh acres ceiling land. The rest is private land,” a senior revenue department official said.Official sources said there were nearly 7,000 cases against the revenue department in various courts, especially high court, as the local revenue authorities failed to remove their properties from the prohibited list. Cases have been pending in courts for years. “Since high court had directed the govt to look into such cases, we hope most of them will be resolved,” a senior revenue official said.Some legal experts said many of these issues could be resolved at the district level itself with a proper adjudication system. The district collectors send the list to the registration or revenue department for prohibition and the same officer has to remove it from the prohibited list. There should be an adjudication system or committee for prohibited properties, experts say.Land laws expert M Suneel Kumar said there were three major concerns on land on the prohibited list in Telangana. First, the basis for listing them under the prohibited list. The reason is that old records and present ones do not match and many of them have been recorded as patta land and there were no records on Bhoodan land. Second, the procedure involved in listing a land or survey number as a prohibited property. “Earlier, we had suggested to the govt to put the list before gram sabhas and take opinion of the people to avoid problems,” Sunil said.“Third reason is that there is no proper adjudication or grievance redressal system to remove patta and private land parcels from the prohibited list,” he added.
