Bengal to add land case bench

The West Bengal state Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal (LRTT) was looking at opening a fourth bench in the coming six months as well as fill up recruitment gaps to expediate case disposals.

It currently had three benches of which two were effectively operational as the third bench lacked a judicial member.

Each bench had an administrative and one judicial member.

The Land Reforms department was looking at filling up the vacancy within the next three months, informed S C Tewary, land reforms commissioner and secretary, land & land reforms department. The LRTT disposed roughly around 100-150 cases per month, taking the total upto 1500 cases a year.

If all the three benches were operational, the case disposal rate could go up to 2000 per year, Tewary mentioned.

Another issue was with the shortage of grade C & D staff at the LRTT.

Casual staff, around five now, were recruited under a term of employment of one year.

Efforts were on to make them permanent employees, according to officials at the Land Reforms department. Tewary,however, declined to comment on the issue.

The department today shifted the tribunal to its new building in Salt Lake.

It operated from a wing in one of the government offices in the area earlier and faced severe space crunch.

The new building cost the department Rs2 crore.

Speaking on the occassion, state land & land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah said that as there was only one such tribunal in entire West Bengal, litigants from north Bengal faced considerable difficulties.

He, however, claimed that the rate of disposal of cases was high at the LRTT.

The Tribunal had disposed 18354 cases so far since 1998-99 and had around 12,000 cases pending.