Declare no more properties as vested: Rights activists

No new list of vested properties or additions to the existing one should be made or published through gazettes, rights activists said yesterday, expressing fears that it would subject more people to harassment for the legal complexities it entails.

The call came in the wake of the land ministry's attempt to propose at the November 10 cabinet meeting to amend the list "Ka", which includes vested properties already under the government's possession.

Addressing a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity, Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), urged the government to monitor, identify and take action against the corrupt government officials who were impeding the implementation of the Vested Property Return (Amendment) Act 2011.

Nine organisations including ASK, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), the Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), and Nijera Kori arranged it.

After the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the then Pakistan government promulgated the enemy property ordinance and took possession of Indian institutions as well as properties of any non-Muslim individual or families, who left Pakistan for India between 1965 and 1969, Kajal Debnath, presidium member of BHBCUC, told The Daily Star.

 The state continued to take over properties of religious minorities as vested properties till April 2001 when the government passed the Vested Property Return Act to give vested properties back to their rightful owners by producing the list "Ka", Subrata Chowdhury, another presidium member of BHBCUC, told The Daily Star.

In 2011, yet another list, "Kha", was made including properties declared as vested but which were not under the government's possession, he said. Both lists with "Ka" involving about two lakh acres of land and "Kha" about four lakh acres were published, he said.

In the face of opposition from rights activists, the government cancelled the list "Kha", and two circulars were issued in this regard in October 2013 and May 2014 asking all authorities to treat all "Kha" properties as any other normal property, said Subrata.

However, personnel at the offices of assistant commissioners (AC-land) continue to harass people when they try to get mutation papers or submit land tax, he said.

"Ignoring government circulars they say the property belongs to someone else and ask for bribes 10 times the tax amount," said Kajal Debnath.

Subrata feared that the government's recent move would lead to inclusion of the properties under the defunct "Kha" list into the "Ka" list.

On the other hand, the cases filed by claimants under the "Ka" list were facing delay in court because of non-cooperation by government officials, he said.

Khushi Kabir, executive director of Nijera Kori, said that even the verdicts of tribunals regarding vested properties could not be implemented because of non-cooperation from government offices. 

The organisations demanded that a special tribunal be formed in every district to deal only with the cases of return of vested properties.