Vadodara city police on Thursday registered two separate FIRs under Gujarat land grabbing (prohibition). Act, 2020, in Makarpura and Panigate police stations.
In an FIR lodged at Makarpura police station, Kirit Patel, a resident of Jetalpur area of Vadodara, has said that his ancestral property is located on plots of different survey numbers in Tarsali area. Of these, the nephew of the complainant had allegedly staked ownership rights on a plot and, in 2013, demolished the fence of the plot and began construction of a concrete structure, along with a signboard of his ownership.
According to Patel, while hearing his civil petition on a land dispute, a local court passed a decree against the nephew, but it did not stop the nephew from giving up “illegal possession” of the land.
Patel then approached Makarpura police station to lodge a complaint under the Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act. The police have started investigating the allegations.
In the second FIR registered at Panigate police station, the complainant is 53-year-old Mayuri Pandit, a resident of Waghodia Road. He has alleged that two commercial shops owned by him are in “illegal possession” of the accused.
The complaint states that both the shops are part of her husband’s involvement in the construction of the commercial complex at Waghodia Road. The two shops which remained unsold were leased to Sajid Latif Sheikh for a period of 11 months at a monthly compensation of Rs 8,500 for his construction business.
The complaint states, “After the Sulemani chawl (by Vadodara Municipal Corporation in 2016) was demolished, the complainant and his family gave shops to the accused’s family to live on compassionate grounds and run their construction business. was extended, but now, the owners have sought their property back and asked the accused to vacate the shops and hand over the possession.”
The complaint states that the accused stopped paying monthly rent from 2019 and also refused to vacate the shop, leading to the previous complaint in the same year. However, since the accused did not hand over the possession, the complainant moved the court to initiate proceedings for legal eviction of the accused of the property.
A Vadodara court had recently directed the Panigate police station to register a case under the land grabbing law and initiate action against Sheikh.
Earlier, two other cases of land grabbing have also been registered in two police stations of Vadodara district.
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