Court notice pasted on Mizoram ex-governor's home

JAIPUR: After the former Mizoram governor Kamla Beniwal failed to appear before the district and sessions court, notice has been pasted at her house to appear for trial in a 2012 case related to usurping of government land worth crores of rupees. The next date of hearing of the case is November 22.

On October 14, ADJ Court-4 judge Rajesh Sharma had dismissed a revision petition filed by Beniwal and 14 others challenging an order of a magistrate taking cognizance for offences of forgery, fraud and usurping of government land in Jaipur and directed her and other 14 accused in the case to appear before the court.

There are 14 other accused in the case. Out of the 14, the court has pasted notices on houses of four accused, while the rest 10 were informed over the phone. “There are two other accused in the case, they have died. The court had directed all the accused in the court but they did not appear. Following that, the court directed to paste notices on the houses. The court had ordered the accused to face trial on October 22,” said advocate AK Jain, who had filed the criminal complaint on behalf of one Sanjay Kishore in 2012.

The case against her pertains to 384 bighas (nearly 218.34 acres) of government land allotted to one Kisan Samuhik Krishi Sahkari Samiti Limited (farmers' cooperative society) at a cost of Rs 25 per acre for collective farming at Jhotwara on the city’s outskirts in 1953.

Kamla had become a member of this cooperative society in 1970. The society got the land on a 20-year lease, which was later extended to 25 years. The lease, as such, expired in 1978 and, as per the agreement, the land's ownership stood transferred to the state government. The government earmarked 221 bighas from the original 384 bigha for Kardhani and Prithviraj Nagar residential schemes in October 1999. Since the land already stood transferred to the government, the petitioner claimed that society members had no right to claim compensation in lieu of “land acquisition”.

According to the complainant in court, the society’s original members had been elbowed out and influential people had taken over its reins. They allegedly manipulated society rules to distribute the land among themselves.