New Delhi, January 1: Member of Parliament Santokh Singh Chaudhary on Friday wrote a letter to the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asking him to grant freehold property rights to the survivors of the 1947 Partition living in cantonment areas of the country. He also wrote to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence Chairman Jual Oram and Member Rahul Gandhi to take up the matter in the committee.
MP Chaudhary stated that many Partition survivors from Pakistan were given evacuee properties by the Central Government in cantonment areas as per provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954. “The said Act provides for two kinds of sale, namely, freehold and leasehold. The migrants from Pakistan, who purchased the evacuee properties from the Government, paid full consideration for land and superstructure and therefore, became the owners with freehold rights under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 and Appendices 22 and 24 of The Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Rules, 1955,” he wrote in the letter.
However, he further wrote, vide Office Memorandum No. 30/2/L/L&C/54/5150-L/D(C&L) dated 23/07/1959, the Ministry of Defence asked the Ministry of Rehabilitation to “carry out transfer of evacuee properties or interest in the properties subject to the terms and conditions of the existing ‘Old Grant’ and lease subject to the stipulation that the rights of the Ministry of Defence in such properties would remain unaffected.”
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“Consequently, the displaced allottees/purchasers were given properties in cantonments with transfer deeds registered as per forms in Appendices 22 and 24 of the aforementioned The Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Rules, 1955, but the word ‘freehold’ therein was replaced with ‘leasehold’ without approval from the competent authority,” he added.
MP Chaudhary said that the Government violated the provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 and infringed on displaced persons’ legal rights, adding that despite making necessary payments for the land and the superstructure to the Government, they did not get full rights on the properties.
He stated that the justice needed to be done to survivors of Partition and requested the Defence Minister to withdraw the 1959 Office Memorandum and restore the freehold rights in properties owned by them.