Study of causes of land disputes and delays in decisions over property rights in agricultural lands in Maharashtra

Abstract

Land ownership and accessibility to land are fundamental constituents of any system which is considered as an essential aspect of human societies. An efficient land administration system is essential for effective land dispute resolution, since rights to lands are valuable and legal claims to them are enforced by the State. But systems in India suffer from delay, cost and inglorious uncertainty in final outcome of any litigation. The complexities of procedures, multiplicities of laws and very structure of organization increase the total period occupied by the resolution process and appeals, revisions and reviews arising out of them. Any type of dispute over property rights in land directly creates the doubts in the minds of stakeholders about the ownership title of land, resulting into poor cultivation, leading to lower productivity and degradation of land leading to perpetual poverty. Sale of crops raised on disputed lands becomes difficult due to non-availability of proper ownership documents. For high value non-agricultural lands, in absence of clear property titles, permission for sale, mortgage and lease is denied. Land disputes reduce the interest of farmers in cultivation leading to national waste of this valuable resource. The litigants/occupants are burdened with cost of litigation such as loss of daily wages, cost of advocates fees, travel expenditure, expenditure towards procurement of necessary documents, etc. Social loss is a loss of dignity, poor social relations, and frequent quarrels, resulting in murders, rapes and sometimes social boycotts. In spite of many economic stimulus packages, some pockets in the country do not accelerate the growth rate because of poor or doubtful property rights. Land dispute resolution procedures are time consuming, bureaucratically cumbersome, expensive and frequently non-transparent, inaccessible to much of the rural population and are handled in languages and forms that people do not understand, resulting in high land record maintenance cost. In order to address the above issues, with primary aim to reduce number of disputes, the study entitled Study of Causes of Land Disputes and Delays in Decisions over Property Rights in Agricultural Lands in Maharashtra was taken up with objectives viz., study of socio-economic background of litigants, causes of land disputes and delays in settlement of land disputes The study comprises of three districts viz, Sindhu durg from Konkan region, Ahmednagar from Western Maharashtra and Parbhani from rest of Maharashtra. In all, 171 litigants were selected from the above districts to study the influence of socioeconomic profile on land disputes. The requisite information was obtained during the year 2010, through a specially designed questionnaire. The secondary data pertaining to mutation entries, first appeals and second appeals were obtained from the office records of respective authorities. The data were analyzed with Statistical tools viz.,percentage, averages, Chi Square (X2) test, simple liner regression equation and Karl Person Correlation coefficient. The study revealed that, majority of litigants approaching the court, were the literate males. There is association between literacy and gender of the litigants. In order to avoid delays and reduce the costs, alternate dispute resolution processes like Lokadalats, Village Panchayat and arbitration are frequently encouraged by the government but the litigants did not prefer these alternatives. Majority of the land disputes were for the land ownership issues. Non-clarity of title, doubtful transactions, administrative loopholes, legal multiplicities, etc. could be the major reasons for the disputes over the property rights. The substantial delay was noticed for settlement of the land disputes. As per the State Government directives, the land dispute shall be ordinarily settled within a period of three months. According to the litigants, the major causes of delay in settlement of land disputes were time spent in conduct of proceedings, start of the proceeding and delivery of judgment by the court. The delay may be due to non-availability of Courts or advocates, frequent adjournments asked by either of the parties, non-availability of lower court papers or heavy pendency of old cases and time constraint of the Court due to frequent touring and other work, etc. The litigants in Ahmednagar districts have incurred heavy expenditure to resolve the land disputes because of the higher productivity of lands. Hilly terrain and high priced small patches of land in Sindhudurg district have attributed to more expenditure toward the dispute resolutions. The high positive correlation between disposal of mutation entries and receipt of appeals in Parbhani district indicated that the disputes resolution mechanism at the lowest level (certification of mutation entries) was not effective. The low satisfaction level of litigants at original dispute resolution level resulted in increase in first appeals for want of justice. The higher growth rate of mutation entries in Parbhani district may be due to the high average size of holding, low per capita income which jointly influenced the deep affection towards the land as the main source of livelihood. The negative annual growth rate in respect of receipts of 2nd appeals in Ahmednagar district could be due to more effective work of 1st appellate authority in dispute resolution process and hence, there are less and less 2nd appeals. The higher growth rate of total disposal of 2nd appeals in Sindhudurg district indicated the priority of 2nd appellate authority to land dispute resolution work. The forecast values for mutation entries estimated for next 10 years were more or less doubled. The percentage gap between forecast values of total disposal of 1stappeals was observed higher. The higher the percentage of gap, higher is the need for increase in the rate of disposal by increasing the number and skill of manpower. In Ahmednagar district, the forecast values of the disposal of 2nd appeals indicated that, there would not be a heavy burden of the cases, during next 10 years, assuming the existing rate of the cases. While in Sindhudurg and Parbhani districts, the work of 2ndappellate authority will be increased considerably. The study suggested the need for strengthening of alternate dispute resolution processes like Lokadalats, Village Panchayat and arbitration processes on lawful environment to avoid delays and reduce the costs. The courts have to assign more days for court work, take up effective number of cases for hearing and attend them diligently, to tackle the issue of delays. The forecast values of 1st appeals across the selected districts will be increased considerably during next 10 years. This emphasizes the need for employing additional manpower for dispute resolution process at 1stappellate level and to develop the land rights protection system that will minimize the inception of land disputes, such as introduction of land titling system, use of Geological Positioning and Remote Sensing (GPRS) system for measurement and mapping of the land, etc. To arrest the increasing rate of cases, the vacancies at lower court level should be filled in. The proportionate increase in number of personnel is essential to mitigate the additional increase in cases. The government may take initiative to expedite the disposal of cases.