UNCLAIMED AND UNCHECKED: HOW GOVERNANCE GAPS ENABLE THE RISE OF LAND ENCROACHMENT IN INDIA

AUTHOR – NAVEENA. K, STUDENT AT CHETTINAD SCHOOL OF LAW

BEST CITATION – NAVEENA. K, UNCLAIMED AND UNCHECKED: HOW GOVERNANCE GAPS ENABLE THE RISE OF LAND ENCROACHMENT IN INDIA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (13) OF 2025, PG. 452-464, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344

ABSTRACT

Indian land encroachment has become a longstanding issue in governance that is based on administrative failures in the system and unclear laws. The critical review in this paper is the role of fragmented institutional structures, ineffective inter-agency coordination, and accountability in allowing the encroachments to rise unabated in the public, forest, and urban lands. Based on doctrinal studies and some significant literature, the work brings to the fore the advantages of administrative indulgence, whereby the issuance of address proofs and utility services to illegal occupants legitimises the illegal possession and makes it difficult to evict the occupants.The analysis indicates that the gaps in governance are not procedural ones; however, there are structural ones, which include the ineffectiveness of detection, surveillance, and preventive enforcement in the early stages. Revenue, Urban Local Bodies, Forest Authorities, and Panchayati Raj Institutions are departmental and tend to operate separately, with some overlapping jurisdictions and a lack of consistency in their data systems, which supports encroachment. Courts and humanitarian concerns also make implementation harder since a court focuses on procedural equity and rehabilitation rather than on the strict legal ownership.The paper ends with a suggestion of a multi-pronged reform agenda: digitisation of land records, GIS-based surveillance, performance-based responsibilities on officials, and providing legal protection against administrative conferences. It proposes that reactive to preventive governance in which transparency, coordination and citizen control are the new control points in land management. The study provides practical recommendations to policymakers to reduce land encroachment without interfering with equity and legality by harmonising the law with institutional analysis.

Keywords : Encroachment, Administration, Local Authorities, Prevention, Unchecked Land.