Bengaluru: With the President approving the Karnataka Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill, 2011, the government is now gearing up to take on those who have encroached on its properties across the state by setting up special courts to try them.

"The Centre has agreed to our proposal for setting up of the special courts . The revenue department has sent another proposal to Delhi to set the ball rolling for clearing encroachments from its land," law and parliamentary affairs minister, T B Jayachandra told the Deccan Chronicle.

The special courts will have on board deputy commissioners and judicial officers like retired or serving judges of any court, according to him.

Two posts of special deputy commissioners have been created in Bengaluru urban district to collect details of the encroachments to help the government file criminal cases against the landgrabbers.

And deputy commissioners of all districts have been asked to prepare a complete list of encroachments of revenue land in their respective districts before preparing to book criminal cases against the encroachers.

Asserting that prompt action would be taken to evict encroachers however influential they may be, the minister declared, "There is no question of showing any mercy to the encroachers.

The government is fully committed to evicting illegal occupants of its land and reclaiming it".

Already, around 800 acres of encroachments had been cleared over the last 18 months and steps would be taken to reclaim another 8,000 acres soon, he promised. "The time has come to put a stop to land grabbing cases," he added.

The A T Ramaswamy Committee constituted by former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had found that as much as 8,834 acres of revenue land had been encroached upon in Bengaluru alone.