AAP govt to prepare ‘draft’ to revoke cases under Section 81

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday made this announcement while addressing a gathering of the All India Kisan Sabha at his residence. He also slammed Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for putting a stay on the notification of hiking circle rates.

The chief minister said the city government had no powers to remove Section 81 from the statute books as land was a Union subject. “We cannot remove it from the law. We are preparing a draft to ask the government to take back all the cases booked under section 81. The law department is checking ways to do so,” he said. As per the existing norms under Section 81 of the Land Acquisition Act, no agricultural land could be used for construction of houses and other purposes.

On the issue of circle rates, Kejriwal said the L-G has “no right” to put a stay on a decision taken by the elected government and that it was “illegal” on his part to do so.

“He (L-G) issued a circular to all the officials stating he is examining the matter and that’s why he had put a stay. L-G has no right stay anything. This is illegal and no law gives him this right. When we raised this issue of increasing the circle rate according to the market rates, it caused a huge problem to the high-profile builders whose godfathers are sitting in Congress and BJP,” he alleged. Kejriwal, who has been at loggerheads with the Centre over jurisdiction of governance since assuming office, accused the L-G of declaring all orders passed by the AAP government as “null and void”.