By Mohammad Amin Mir

They didn’t expect a shed to spark a legal storm. But in Kurigam, a quiet village in south Kashmir, that’s exactly what happened.

A bit of concrete, a tin roof, and a court order that was supposed to freeze everything in place — that was all it took.

Now, two government officers are facing contempt proceedings in the High Court, and everyone’s trying to figure out what went wrong, and who’s to blame.

The issue started with what’s known in local administration as Mutation No. 1599 — a record change in land ownership.

It was first approved, then cancelled by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC), and finally declared illegal by the Financial Commissioner for Revenue.

Things might have ended there, but one of the affected parties wasn’t satisfied. He took it to the High Court, which issued a direction that’s both powerful and common in land disputes: maintain status quo.

The words sound simple enough. In court terms, it means no changes — no building, no selling, no shifting boundaries. It freezes the situation until the case is sorted out.

But as with many things in Kashmir’s land bureaucracy, what sounds clear on paper often gets murky on the ground.

After the High Court passed the order, the petitioner went back to court with a complaint: one of the respondents had gone ahead and built a small structure — a shed-cum-house — on the disputed land.

The construction, he said, violated the court’s order. The officers who should have stopped it — the ADC and the Naib Tehsildar — did nothing. At least,........

© Kashmir Observer