SRINAGAR: Seven months after the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status on August 5 last year, J&K Law Commission has recommended a complete ban on distress sale of properties belonging to migrant persons in Kashmir . Once accepted by J&K administration, the ban will come into force, paving the way for the migrants to come back to the Valley.

In its report, which has already been submitted to J&K administration, the panel headed by former high court judge M K Hanjura has recommended that “a blanket ban be imposed on the alienation of property belonging to such class of people (migrant persons) till further orders.”

In its observations, the panel has stated that Jammu and Kashmir Migrant Immoveable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sales) Act, 1997, has not been implemented in letter and spirit in the past over two decades.

“No doubt the Act imposes restrictions on alienation of immoveable property and it provides that district magistrates shall take over the possession of immoveable properties belonging to migrants falling within the limits of their territorial jurisdiction, and it also lays down that unauthorized occupants of any migrant property shall surrender the possession of the same to the competent authority. But the fact of the matter is that this Act has been followed in breach and the obligations cast on the authorities detailed therein do not appear to have been discharged sacredly for the last more than two decades by now,” reads the report.

The report claims that “district magistrates have failed to take over the possession of the migrant property in their hold as mandated under the Act and it has not been notified anywhere”.

“Had the intention of this legislation been to resettle Kashmiri Pandits within the precincts of the Valley of Kashmir at any moment of time, in that event a blanket ban would have been imposed on the alienation of the migrant property by any mode of transfer, which has not been done under the Act,” the report states.

It further says, “In order to protect the left-out property of this class of helpless citizens, which is too small by now compared to what it was in the year of 1990 when and whereafter these properties were put to distress sales, a blanket ban on alienation of their property was and continues to be the need of the hour.”

The panel has recommended to the government to set up an independent agency which will perform functions assigned to district collectors under the law. It has also recommended that the word “migrant” be replaced by “internally displaced persons” in the Act.

