Shimla – In a major judgment impacting thousands across the state, the Himachal Pradesh High Court has struck down the state government’s five bigha land regularisation policy and ordered the removal of all illegal encroachments on government land by February 28, 2026.
A division bench comprising Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Bipin Chandra Negi delivered the verdict on Tuesday, ending over two decades of legal uncertainty surrounding the controversial policy. The judgment came in response to a petition filed by Poonam Gupta challenging the policy’s legality.
Under the now-quashed policy, launched in 2002, the then-BJP government had invited applications from people who had encroached upon government land. Over 1.65 lakh applications were received from individuals seeking to regularise between five to twenty bighas of land. To facilitate this, the state had amended the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act and introduced Section 163-A, which has now been declared invalid by the court.
The petition argued that the state government had no legal authority to grant ownership of encroached land. Supporting this view, the central government also submitted that the policy violated constitutional provisions and encouraged illegal occupation of government property.
The court had reserved its verdict after hearing the case on January 8. On Tuesday, it directed the state government to clear all encroachments from public land by the February 2026 deadline.
The ruling overturns a 2002 interim order by a different division bench that had allowed the application process to continue while denying land leases. With this latest order, the High Court has brought finality to a long-standing legal battle and sent a clear message against the regularisation of illegal land occupation.
The decision is expected to have far-reaching implications in Himachal Pradesh, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas where large tracts of government land are under encroachment.
