Speedy disposal of vested property cases remains a tough task

Applicants claiming ownership of vested property crowd the office of the additional deputy commissioner (ADC-Revenue) of Tangail. They, however, do not know how long they will have to wait for disposal of the cases. PHOTO: STAR

The tribunal and the district committee, formed to return the vested properties to the genuine owners, are struggling to deal with the enormously large number of applications submitted by the claimants.
Of around 22,500 applications submitted from June last year till February this year, the tribunal comprising the District and Sessions Judge and Additional District and Sessions Judge-1 and the district committee led by the additional deputy commissioner (Revenue) disposed only 513 cases till March 5.
Of 45,167 acres of land vested property in the district, 2,547 acres belong to schedule 'ka' (under the government possession or on lease) and 42,620 acres to schedule 'kha' (not under the government possession), said district administration sources.
The number of the applications for 'kha' category vested property is likely to see a great increase as the committee concerned will receive the applications till April 24, they added.
The last date to submit application for 'ka' category vested property ended on February 14, but there is demand to extend the time as many people could not submit it by the time.
As per the existing law, the person or institution claiming the ownership of the vested property under 'kha' schedule has to submit application to the president of the district committee (led by ADC) or the tribunal (led by Judge) with relevant papers and documents while claimants of any vested property under schedule 'ka' have to submit application to the tribunal only.
The applications have to be disposed within 300 days of submission and additional 60 days can be given under special considerations.
As many as 7,385 applications for vested property, including 1080 for schedule 'ka' and 6350 for schedule 'kha' were submitted to the tribunal till March 5, said sources in Vested Property Return Tribunal in Tangail.
Of the 113 cases disposed, all but five have gone in favour of the applicants, they said.
The District Vested Property Return Committee disposed only 400 cases till March 5, out of around 15,000 applications submitted to it till February, committee sources said.
Shoyeb Ahmed, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) of Tangail, and president of the District Vested Property Return Committee, said it will not be possible for the lone committee to dispose the large number of cases within the scheduled time.
Increasing the number of such Tribunal and Committee is a must to dispose so many vested property cases within the scheduled time and mitigate the sufferings of the people concerned, said Sadhan Chakroborty, convener of the Committee to Prevent Vested Property Law Misuse in Tangail.
UNB adds: The Cabinet on Sunday approved a proposal for amending the 'Vested Property Return Act, 2001' to ensure speedy disposal of cases and petitions on return of vested property.
An ordinance will be promulgated in this regard to make the amended version of the law effective, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters after the regular weekly Cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Under the proposed amendments, a provision has been kept to increase the number of tribunals and committees on vested property return to ensure justice, the secretary said.
Under the existing law, the cases and petitions on vested property under government possession or on lease are disposed of at tribunals headed by district judges or equivalent judicial officer and appeals on the cases of the tribunals are disposed of at the appellate tribunals headed by the High Court judges.
The amendment now proposes to set up tribunals at district level headed by judicial officers equivalent to senior assistant district judge, joint district judges and additional district judges while the appeals would be disposed of at the appellate tribunals headed by district judge.
The proposed law also has a provision for constituting seven divisional committees to settle the appeals against the decisions of the existing district-level committees on the listed vested property which are not under government possession.
The divisional-level committees would be headed by additional divisional commissioners and appeals against the decisions of the divisional committees would be disposed of at the central committee headed by the Chairman of Land Appeal Board.