The controversial Jharkhand Land Mutation Bill, 2020, which was cleared by the state cabinet last week, may not get tabled in the upcoming monsoon session starting from Friday as the Congress, part of the ruling alliance, now believes that the bill is flawed and can hurt mass sentiments.

The Congress reached the conclusion in the wake of protests against the proposed bill, forcing the Hemant Soren dispensation either to make a U-turn or introduce amendments.

While the Opposition BJP had already threatened mass protests against the bill and demanded its rollback, Mandar MLA Bandhu Tirkey, who after winning as a JVM-P candidate had joined the Congress, led an agitation in Ranchi on Tuesday citing loopholes.

Voices of protest against this bill also resonated at the Congress’s legislative party meeting on Thursday evening ahead of the monsoon session. The meeting, to strategise the party’s stand on various issues in the House and to defend the government against Opposition barbs, went on for three hours from 3pm.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Congress president Rameshwar Oraon, who is also the state’s finance minister, said: “We concede that the land mutation bill has some flaws and it needs to be amended. The bill was cleared by the cabinet but needs to pass many more stages to become an act. We will put our concerns before the chief minister so that we can come up with a law to suit everyone.”

Oraon, who was flanked by Pakur MLA and state rural development and parliamentary affairs minister Alamgir Alam, didn’t clarify whether this bill will be tabled in the upcoming session but reiterated that the feedback from MLAs and other quarters so far had suggested that it will not be good in public interest.

Mandar MLA Tirkey, on the other hand, said the proposed bill is tilted more towards the bureaucracy and less towards the public. Explaining the loopholes, he said: “Section 22 of the bill is intended to provide immunity for officials engaged in land registration, mutation and other activities from any civil or criminal action even if any wrongdoing is done. So, if my land documents are forged and get falsely registered in someone else’s name in connivance with officials and the land mafia, I will have no option to file a case anywhere. This will be disastrous for the state, where land is always a sensitive issue and fraud and corruption are widespread.”

Defending the bill a few days ago, state land and revenue secretary K.K. Soan had stressed that the focus of the bill was to introduce reforms in mutation and land registration by introducing time limits to enforce accountability on officials. On the question of immunity to officials, he had said: “The government will still be free to take action in case of any wrongdoing if prosecution against him/her is approved by the competent authority.”

Tirkey, however, questioned the yardstick for judging wrongdoing. “What yardstick will the government (land revenue department) follow to assess wrongdoing? The bill doesn’t prescribe this. Moreover, the bill simply weans power from the common man in the event of any land crime against him and equips officials with more authority. Till the time this clause of protection to officials is not removed from the bill, I shall continue to block it, no matter what,” he said.