According to an RTI document obtained by the anti-corruption organization PRISM (People's Right to Information and Development Implementing Society of Mizoram), the Mizoram Government had issued 63 land passes on the Assam Rifles-occupied lands in the state during the period ranging from 1970 to 1996.
The land passes included 43 land settlement certificates (LSCs), 15 house passes, three DPLs and one garden passes.
According to information furnished by the state, land revenue and settlement department under the RTI Act, individuals who own plots at the lands occupied by the para-military force included Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla s late son Lal Thanzauva, two former Congress ministers Liansuama and Hrangthanga Colney and some land revenue and settlement department officials.
The three biggest political parties-- Congress, Mizo National Front and Mizoram People's Conference (then People's Conference) had ruled during this period.
The revelation came in the wake of Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla's public statement that not an inch of the land would be given to individuals till the para-military force is shifted to their new headquarters at Zokhawsanga near here by early next year.
According to a retired IAS officer and former Mizoram state chief information commissioner Robert Hrangdawla, the state government does not have any authority to issue land passes on land which do not belong to the state government, but to the home ministry.
If the state government issues land passes to individuals, the land pass holders have to pay land taxes to the state government.
That is a breach of Article 285 of the Indian Constitution, he said. The Assam Rifles headquarters in the heart of the state capital was built by Lt Col G H Loch as a base of the first battalion Assam Rifles in 1890.
When India gained independence in 1947, the Assam Rifles came under the home ministry so did their occupied lands in the entire state of Mizoram.
Just like the Mizoram Government does not have the authority to issue land settlement certificates in Kolkata, Delhi or anywhere outside the state, it is illegal to carve out a portion of the home ministry's land in Aizawl and give them to individuals, Hrangdawla said.
The former bureaucrat also likened the Assam Rifles land in Aizawl to a Vatican territory in Italy which the Italian government has no control over.
The state government, during the Mizo National Front Ministry in 2002, had passed the Mizoram (Restriction on Use of Transferred Land) Bill, 2002.
The Bill, which is yet to be enacted, states that all land vacated by the Assam Rifles in and around Aizawl as specified in the Schedule shall vest, free from all encumbrances, in the government of Mizoram.
It also states that all rights, title and interest or others claiming through them or any other person other than the government, as may be claimed to be subsisting in such land on the appointed day, shall be deemed to be extinguished, Hrangdawla said.
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