Pune: The transfer of 29 acres and 15 gunthas of reserved forest land from Richie Rich Cooperative Housing Society in Kondhwa Budruk will be completed within a month, Pune district collector Jitendra Dudi told TOI on Saturday.Following a Supreme Court directive on May 15, Dudi directed officials on May 17 to inspect the land and begin the process of its handover to the forest department. “An inspection found that there were no encroachments. The 7/12 extracts will be updated on priority, and the transfer will be carried out within a month.” The apex court quashed the 1998 allotment of 11.89 hectares (nearly 30 acres) to the housing society and declared the transaction illegal. Though the land was originally earmarked for agricultural use, it was sold to the society in 2007 with the environment ministry’s clearance. The court said that this violated a 1996 Central govt ban on diverting forest land for non-forestry purposes. The land was notified as reserved forest in 1879 and had continued to be recorded as such in official documents, the court said. No valid process of de-reservation had occurred since 1934. The court found that the land diversion stemmed from a nexus between politicians, bureaucrats, and builders, carried out under the pretext of rehabilitation. About the SC’s three-month deadline to complete the transfer, a revenue department official said, “With no encroachments, the handover of land can be done easily as only the necessary changes shall have to be made in records.“Pune: The transfer of 29 acres and 15 gunthas of reserved forest land from Richie Rich Cooperative Housing Society in Kondhwa Budruk will be completed within a month, Pune district collector Jitendra Dudi told TOI on Saturday.Following a Supreme Court directive on May 15, Dudi directed officials on May 17 to inspect the land and begin the process of its handover to the forest department. “An inspection found that there were no encroachments. The 7/12 extracts will be updated on priority, and the transfer will be carried out within a month.” The apex court quashed the 1998 allotment of 11.89 hectares (nearly 30 acres) to the housing society and declared the transaction illegal. Though the land was originally earmarked for agricultural use, it was sold to the society in 2007 with the environment ministry’s clearance. The court said that this violated a 1996 Central govt ban on diverting forest land for non-forestry purposes. The land was notified as reserved forest in 1879 and had continued to be recorded as such in official documents, the court said. No valid process of de-reservation had occurred since 1934. The court found that the land diversion stemmed from a nexus between politicians, bureaucrats, and builders, carried out under the pretext of rehabilitation. About the SC’s three-month deadline to complete the transfer, a revenue department official said, “With no encroachments, the handover of land can be done easily as only the necessary changes shall have to be made in records.“
