The High Court of Karnataka on Friday directed the State Revenue authorities not to evict people who are residing in small parcels of land belonging to the State if such persons have applied for regularisation of land and the applications are pending for consideration as per the law.
A Division Bench comprising Justice K.L. Manjunath and Justice S. Sujatha passed the interim order during the hearing of public interest litigation petitions related to the State’s inaction on recovering encroached public land.
Meanwhile, the Bench asked the authorities to start recovering public land encroached in urban areas and file a status report by February 27.
The Bench issued the directions after Senior Counsel Sajan Poovayya, who is the amicus curiae in the case, told the Bench that Revenue authorities were targeting only poor people holding small parcels of land while encroachers of large area of public land were not touched even after repeated directions of the court to first recover larger encroachments.
Authorities told to recover public land encroached in urban areas and file status report by February 27
