ACCORDING to State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950, "land" means land which is cultivated, uncultivated or covered with water at any time of the year, and includes benefits to arise of land, houses or buildings and also things attached to the earth, or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth; Being the most long lasting thing in the world, land is stricken with countless problems. Transparency International Bangladesh report of 2017 says, from July 01, 2016 to September 30, 2016, 3.1 million cases are under trial at different courts across the country of which 60 per cent of cases relates only to land. The government by issuing a gazette in September 2012 constituted 12 tribunals and later in November, 42 Land Survey Tribunals and a separate tribunal for Dhaka. A recently published report of the Supreme Court (SC) shows that some 0.26 million land survey cases are pending before land survey tribunals (LSTs). A number of 5 thousand 767 cases are pending with every judge when SC earmarked one judge each for 1500 cases. The Bangladesh Survey Revised (BSR) began in 1984 but is yet to be finished. In some areas where survey has been completed, a great number of errors are seen. This resulted in increasing number of cases relating to land disputes in various districts. Moreover, in 2012 a Land Appeal Tribunal was said to be formed by a gazette but the appeal tribunal did not see the light of the day even in five years.
Although the country's overwhelming number of cases are related to land, most of the people here do not have proper knowledge about their land related rights and land laws. To have knowledge and skill about the land related laws, there were no lessons in the curriculum of our conventional education system. Our regular 4 year LLB (Hons) provides 32 courses only and one of these courses relates to land laws. One course with 40-56 classes is not enough to be acquainted with the complicated land laws. It is a matter of pleasure that in 2015 Rajshahi University and in January 2017 Jagannath University launched the department of "Land Management and Law" under faculty of "LAW". Having 8 courses relating to different branches of land laws, introduction of this department is a timely move.
Besides land education system, the whole land management system of Bangladesh is still very traditional and needs to be updated. Not only the method of land survey, maintenance of records, drawing of land maps, maintenance of all related data are still done manually which is time consuming. To overcome the obstacles faced in land management system, the concerned ministry must increase its manpower, stamp out corruption, avoid delaying tactics and take other suitable steps as and when required. It is high time for us to know about our land rights and develop an efficient and appropriate land management system.
Afrina Amran Pritul
Student of the department of Land Management and Law
Jagannath University