Freedom fighter's land used as cremation ground, daughter moves Bombay High Court

A 64-year-old woman has approached the Bombay high court because a plot of agricultural land allotted to her late father, who was a freedom fighter, had been categorised as 'forest land' and was being used as a cremation ground.

Priya Anant Raje has filed a petition through advocate Avinash Gokhale seeking that the authorities concerned return the land allotted and make necessary changes in the mutation entry in land records.

Raje's father, Ramchandra Kashinath Deshpande, was a freedom fighter who actively participated in the Quit India Movement in the 1942. He was imprisoned for 19 months in the Kolhapur Central Jail.

Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, had issued a medal and certificate (Tamrapatra) on 15th August, 1972, for Deshpande's contribution in the freedom struggle. Also, the then chief minister, Vasantrao Naik, had honoured Deshpande by issuing a merit certificate (Sanman Patra) dated December 4, 1967.

On April 20, 1974, a plot of land in Shirgaon village, Taluka Ambarnath, Thane, was allotted to Deshpande as per the government's policy to honour freedom fighters by providing them with land for cultivation as a means of livelihood. Deshpande was growing various crops such as paddy and ragi. After his demise, sons Shashank and Shekhar, were tilling the land.

After her father's demise on February 23, 1995, and her mother's death on December 25, 2006, the names of the successors, Raje's brothers, were mutated in the Records of Rights. Raje started looking after the land after the demise of her brothers in 2012. When she visited local revenue authorities to update the revenue entries, she was informed that the land was earmarked as 'reserved forest' by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) without visiting the actual site or verifying the ownership rights or showing any concern about construction/development if any on the plot. Moreover, when she recently visited the land, she was surprised to see it being used as a cremation ground by the Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Council.

Raje's petition says, "It prima facie appears that the various statutory authorities intend to grab the land allotted to the family of a freedom fighter. The petitioner states that the treatment given by the State to the legal heirs is horrible and equally condemnable." Her petition also says that she is entitled to receive compensation for illegal usage of the plot.

Raje has sought that the MMRDA and the municipal corporation of Kulgaon Badlapur incur the exemplary costs for earmarking the agricultural land as 'forest land' without conducting any survey and constructing a structure on the plot which is being used as a cremation ground.

Citing the judgment in the case of war widow Indira Babaji Jadhav, Raje has said that action should be initiated under the Contempt of Court Act against the relevant bodies for not following HC's order of August 5, 2014, which stated that people similarly placed as Jadhav should be given their rights at the earliest. Jadhav, whose husband died during the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965, had to approach the HC when, despite sanctions, the government failed to allot her residential and agricultural land.