The Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the State government to inquire into the alleged land scam in Visakhapatnam has already recommended about 20 cases under 22A to the District Collector for denotification from the 22A list.
The SIT, which had started its investigation in the month of November last year, have so far received about 1,400 applications and it has already examined over 400 applications.
Of the 1,400 applications pertaining to various complaints such as encroachment of government land and NOC lands, it has received close to about 250 applications pertaining to 22A issue.
“Of the 250-odd applications under 22A, we have examined around 80 of them and have found that about 20 applications have been wrongly categorised under 22A. We have recommended it to the District Collector to denotify them from the list,” speaking to The Hindu, former IAS officer Vijay Kumar, who is heading the SIT, said.
According the other applications in the 80-odd examined so far, all have grossly violated the 22A norms and have blatantly encroached upon land belonging to the government, public sector units or endowment or Wakf board.
Four categories
Under 22A there are four categories: 22 A 1(a) all assigned lands or land given to individual for the purpose and which cannot be sold or transferred, 22A 1(b) land belonging to the Union and the State Governments, 22A 1(c) land belonging to endowment, Wafk board or any religious institution, 22A 1(d) land notified under ULC (urban land ceiling), and 22A 1(e) land allotted by government to institutions or private establishments for a purpose.
Any land that fall in these categories and have been encroached or sold fraudulently, have been listed under this list and there will be no further registration, unless the case is considered by the revenue authorities and an NOC (no objection certificate) is obtained or denotified from the list.
The SIT was granted a three months extension by the State government and its core strength was recently enhanced from three to six, with the induction of three new members.
