NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court‘s suo motu cognisance of the hardships faced by the residents of over 300 “old urbanised” and “declared urban” villages in getting ancestral properties transferred or “mutated” in their names has come as a shot in the arm for thousands of people living in such localities. For years, these residents have faced regular harassment while repairing or renovating their old homes or arranging funds by keeping these properties mortgaged.
With mutation being the necessary document for applying for a building plan to rebuild the house, dividing it between siblings, or mortgaging the property, people living in “old urbanised” and “declared urban” villages often end up in legal cases forced upon them sometimes by civic agencies and often by their own family members.
Mutation is a legal process through which the ownership of property or land is transferred to the current owners and the change in ownership reflects in the revenue records maintained by the local authorities.
Of 357 recorded Delhi villages as per the revenue department of Delhi govt, 135, including Hauz Khas, Humayunpur, Naraina and Budhela, were urbanised in phases between the 1950s and 1994; while 174, including Jhuljhuli, Jaunti, Nagal Thakra, Kanjhawala and Bawana, were declared urban in 2018 and 2019. The remaining 48 are still urban.
Once the villages are urbanised or declared urban, Delhi Land Revenue Act, 1954, under which the mutation is done, does not apply to them. These are governed under the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, which does not have a clear mutation policy for land and properties in lal dora and extended lal dora areas of these villages.
Surendra Solanki, the head of Palam 360 Khap, said the problem of non-mutation of properties was not new and started cropping up immediately after the first set of villages were urbanised many years ago. “Instead of finding a solution, govt kept urbanising villages without caring about the repercussions. That’s why the villages of Delhi have turned into slums,” Solanki said.
“Govt should find a way and if there is a need it should bring an amendment in the relevant acts. We have been raising this issue for such a long time but have so far only got assurances. For issues faced by the residents of Delhi villages, we are organising a huge protest on Sept 15 at Jantar Mantar,” Solanki said.
Paras Tyagi, the co-founder of Centre for Youth, Culture, Law and Environment, an NGO that works for the welfare of villages, said the Prime Minister SVAMITVA scheme may prove to be the right solution for the problem of giving ownership to the residents living in lal dora areas of urbanised villages, but added that it had not been implemented in Delhi.
“These issues are not new. Govt and the district administration have held a bias against the natives of Delhi villages. Be it lal dora or agricultural land, both are not being mutated in the name of the current owners and it restricts people from accessing credit facilities,” Tyagi said.
“The revenue department has settlement records of Delhi villages from 1864 till 1908 that have names of all villagers and their land ownership including those under lal dora. The problem began after that as the Delhi administration never cared to continue this practice and our ancestors were also not aware of these necessities in the fast-paced city life,” he added.
