Arundhati Roy, husband Pradip lose the plot-ToI-23.4.11

Suchandana Gupta | TNN

Bhopal: Activist and novelist Arundhati Roy and her filmmaker husband Pradip Kishen lost yet another legal battle to rescue their vacation bungalow in a tribal village allegedly within the notified Pachmarhi Tiger Reserve area in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh.
    The court of divisional commissioner of Bhopal and Narmadapuram quashed the appeals of Kishen and three others on Thursday while endorsing the previous order of a lower revenue court holding the ownership of land in Bariaam village and construction of these bungalows as “illegal’’.
    In November 2010, the SDM court in Pipariya held that Kishen’s vacation home along with the bungalows of author Vikram Seth’s sister Anuradha, a forest officer Nishkant Jadav and a doctor Jagdish Chandra Sharma were constructed on plots of land notified as part of the forest sanctuary under section 18(1) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
    Challenging this decision, the aggrieved parties took the matter to the court of divisional commissioner Bhopal and Narmadapuram, Manoj Shrivastava. In the appeal, Kishen and others’ lawyer Sushil Goel argued that his clients were unaware of the law when they purchased the land and built the villas.
    The divisional commissioner observed: “Ignorance cannot be made a plea in defence. The question here is whether the plots were lawfully acquired or not. And a number of laws including revenue and forest were flouted.’’ Pradip Kishen purchased two plots of land in Bariaam village, 7km from Pachmarhi, in 1992.
    These bungalows are surrounded by lush green vegetation and overlook two hills and the forests. In the eight-page order, divisional commissioner Manoj Shrivastava said that under section 20 of the Wildlife Protection Act, sale of property is prohibited in a notified area and acquisition can only be by inheritance.
    Kishen built the vacation home between 1992 and 1996. While the house was being built, the Special Area Development Authority of Pachmarhi had issued a prohibitory notice to Kishen asking him to stop any further activity.