Cuttack, May 10: A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in Orissa High Court has sought intervention for realisation of land revenue to the tune of around Rs 734 crore pending in connection with over 1,900 acres of government land that are under occupation of individuals, institutions and companies.

The PIL alleged that realisation of the amount of land revenue was lying blocked due to “callousness” and “mischief” of the revenue department officials and “political influence”.

Ramakanta Mishra (65), a resident of Cuttack city, has alleged that apart from these 1,900 acres in several places, land have been “forcibly occupied by the influential persons, who are in politics and government administration in places, including Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, Rourkela, Berhampur and Sambalpur. But the government has neither taken steps to regularise the land in favour of the persons nor evict them”. “By that the Orissa government is losing land revenue in crores of rupees. If such regularisation is done, the government will get land revenue of more than Rs 600 crore,” the petitioner contends citing extracts from a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

The PIL came up for hearing today. “The two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra directed for submission of the CAG report referred to in the petition within a week for appropriate order,” petitioner counsel S.N. Sangneria said.

According to the petition, around 918.616 acres have been occupied by number of persons without payment of land premium, ground rent, cess and interest due to non-finalisation of 17 alienation cases. Consequently, the government is not able to get land revenue of Rs 347.25 crore. It is not able to collect land revenue to the tune of Rs 90.32 crore due to non-regularisation of advance possession over 340.76 acres in 16 cases allowed for public utility purpose. In 12 cases, land was given possession and recommended to higher authorities for sanction. However, due to lack of sanction possession over the land had not been regularised. As a result, land premium, ground rent, cess and interest amounting to Rs 206.77 crore (up to March 31) had not been collected.

The CAG report revealed that a public sector company had applied for lease and occupied government land measuring 568.5 acres under Koraput tehsil. However, it had not been regularised. The file remained in the sub-collector’s office resulting in blocking of revenue collection to the tune of Rs 14.30 crore, the petition said.

Similarly, the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) was granted advance possession over 134.04 acres in October 2004. “Though a land lease case was started by the tehsildar of Rourkela at Panposh in January 2006 and referred to the additional district magistrate, lease of the land was not regularised. By that land revenue to the tune of Rs 75.5 crore remained unpaid by the university,” the petition said.