n a consequential legislative session on September 2, 2025, the Himachal Assembly passed the Prohibition of Change of Public Utilities Bill, 2025, safeguarding roads and other public works built on private land; the government also introduced bills to curb exam cheating, digitise registrations, and align panchayat law with new criminal codes.
Full Report:
The Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Tuesday approved the Prohibition of Change of Public Utilities Bill, 2025, shielding public infrastructure—roads, canals, buildings and similar assets—constructed on private land from removal or reclamation, even where historical paperwork is incomplete. Passed by voice vote, the measure seeks to protect long-used community assets and “sunk” public investments, prescribing penalties—up to six months’ imprisonment or fines between ₹2,000 and ₹10,000—for attempts to obstruct or alter such utilities; compensation is not envisaged under the statute. The government argued the bill codifies a pragmatic balance between individual titles and public interest in Himalayan terrain where legacy alignments often predate formal land settlements.
The House also took up three additional reforms. First, the Himachal Pradesh Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2025 proposes stringent penalties to deter paper leaks and organised cheating—3–5 years’ jail and fines up to ₹10 lakh for offenders, with service providers who abet mass malpractice facing fines as high as ₹1 crore plus potential blacklisting. The move follows national concern over exam integrity and aims to restore trust for students across HP’s competitive and recruitment tests. Second, the Registration (Himachal Pradesh Amendment) Bill, 2025 would pivot land and document registration to Aadhaar-based authentication, e-submission and video verification, reducing queues, fake identities and time-to-mutation in hill districts where travel to sub-registrar offices is cumbersome. Third, amendments to the Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 align offences with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, explicitly penalising personal interest in public contracts by elected representatives—an ethics reform the treasury benches billed as overdue.
While the treasury projected the package as a governance makeover, the opposition flagged civil-liberty and due-process questions, including the absence of compensation pathways in the utilities bill and scope for overreach in exam policing. The government countered that field realities—encroachments on road margins, costly diversions and delayed public works—necessitate a sharper legal tool, and committed to issuing clear implementation rules to prevent misuse. If operationalised carefully, the suite could rewire everyday state-citizen touchpoints: faster property transactions, fairer exams and cleaner grassroots contracting. Expect early administrative circulars to standardise video verification, audit trails for online submissions, and a state-level “cheating incidents registry” to help investigators link patterns across recruitment agencies. For a hill state racing to rebuild after monsoon shocks, today’s legislative thrust signalled a bet on law-and-tech to harden public systems for the long haul.
This is a web generated news report.
