Ropar, August 30: The Ropar administration has placed a temporary halt on all property transactions concerning approximately 800 acres of shamlat land in Bara Phool village. The direction came through an interim order issued by ADC (Development) Chander Jyoti Yadav in response to a plea by the local gram panchayat questioning past transfers of community land to private entities.
The panchayat approached the court of the ADC seeking legal intervention and a Vigilance Bureau inquiry into the matter, asserting that land intended for collective village use had been wrongly allocated. Official confirmation from ADC Chander Jyoti Yadav verified that all buying and selling activities related to the land remain suspended pending the next court hearing.
The dispute involves valuable land along the Ropar bypass, which was gradually transferred to roughly 70 individuals over a 20-year period. In its submission, the panchayat pointed out that multiple recipients of the land rights do not reside in Bara Phool village, prompting requests for administrative review and recovery of the property for panchayat ownership.
Commenting on the development, Ropar MLA Dinesh Chadha affirmed that statutory guidelines set under the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act were overlooked during the allocation process. He maintained that ownership eligibility under the law is restricted to cultivators holding continuous possession before 1950, whereas the disputed transfers took place after 1997. The legislator requested Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to oversee an official examination into the procedural lapses.
Records suggest the property was initially distributed among 40 primary buyers before being subdivided and sold to additional parties over time. Legal guidelines afford specific protections to village common land, and administrative sources confirmed that official standard procedures will determine whether further regulatory or departmental actions are required as the case progresses.
