It was a homecoming Gian Singh is unlikely to forget in a hurry. Settled in Canada since 1970, the affluent transporter flew to India in August last year with a one-point agenda: to claim his share of ancestral land at Raipur Rasulpur village in Punjab's Jalandhar district. The 16 acres, he hoped, would help bring his children closer to their roots. It was a futile hope. Not only did his brother refuse to part with the land, but instead registered a case of theft and trespassing against Gian on what is, as per revenue records, a joint holding. The hapless nri had to surrender his passport and has since been shuttling between the police station and the court. Though exonerated of the theft charges, a dejected Gian says, "There's no justice for nris here." It's a fact more and more expatriates from Punjab are finding hard to reconcile with. With real estate prices in the state registering a 100 per cent hike in the past five years, nris are flocking back home to stake claim to their assets. But they find themselves embroiled in tedious litigation after being duped of their ancestral property or one purchased by remitting money back home.

Harchet Singh, a London-based NRI, spent two years getting one of his five shops in Garh Shankar vacated."The amendments were a half-hearted measure," he says.

According to a recent survey conducted by the state Government, at least 3,000 cases involving nris in property-related disputes are pending in courts. A bulk of these are in the dollar-rich Doaba region comprising Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala districts, home to about 1.4 million expatriates.

The Government's concern is not misplaced. The insecurity among expatriates over their properties-as evident from a flurry of e-mail complaints from abroad pouring into the chief minister's office-is recognised as a major hurdle in attracting nri investment. "The nris now see property investments as a risky gamble," admits Jalandhar MP Balbir Singh. Investment in real estate, which had spiralled in the post-terrorism Punjab, has tapered off considerably. Another damper is the Foreign Exchange Management Act 2000 which has taken away the nris' right of acquisition of agricultural land. "We cannot have big investments unless the nris feel secure about their real estate assets in their home state," says Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The realism notwithstanding, nri properties continue to be prime targets for the thriving land mafia that works in cahoots with police and revenue officials and exploits the compulsions of the expatriates: short visits to the country and inability to pursue the excruciatingly slow-paced judicial proceedings. "The nris are at a clear disadvantage in protecting their property rights," says K.K. Sharma, managing director of the nri Sabha, a Jalandhar-based ngo which espouses the interests of expatriates in Punjab.

Baljit Singh bains has been shuttling between London and Garh Shankar for the past six years. "How can I return to the UK with the legalities going on for years?" he asks.

Nothing exemplifies Sharma's point more tellingly than the travails of Baljit Singh Bains, a British national for 42 years. For the past six years he has been shuttling between London and Garh Shankar in Hoshiarpur, pursuing 35 civil and criminal cases. Taking advantage of his absence, his sister-in-law fraudulently sold off Rs 70 lakh worth of prime ancestral land and filed a criminal complaint against him. Not fluent in Punjabi and unable to tackle corruption, Baljit is desperate: "How can I return to Britain now when I am neck-deep in a legal mess which will go on for generations?" Says D.S. Bains, commissioner of the recently designated Department of nri Affairs: "We can only lend them a shoulder to cry on. The executive cannot do anything to ameliorate their land hassles once it becomes a legal dispute." Two years ago, in the face of intense lobbying by influential expatriates who are known to fund the state polls liberally, the Shiromani Akali Dal-bjp government amended the land laws. While Section 9 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act was changed to enable nris have their agricultural land vacated by a tenant (only once), the East Punjab Urban Rent Restrictions Act 1949 helped them get one residential and one commercial property vacated through a summary trial in the courts. The rider, however, is that the nri should hold the ownership of such a property for the last five years.

Though hailed as a pathbreaking shortcut to legal wrangles, the amendments have proved only to be a half-way house because their ambit is limited to properties where nris have a clear ownership title and are in dispute only with their tenants.

Parkash Kaur returned from the UK after 10 years to claim her property at Mahilpur in Hoshiarpur. "I'm scared of the protracted court proceedings," she says.

More often than not it is the relatives who occupy or fraudulently sell the nris' share by forging the power of attorney and altering the land mutations in revenue records. There is no specific law to help nris in the cases of forcible or illegal occupation of their properties by local caretakers-invariably blood relations. The amendments cater only to cases of landlord-tenant disputes. "Almost 95 per cent of these disputes relate to the undivided ancestral property," says Sharma.

Besides, the relatives exploit the time-consuming procedures to legally partition the property, with a contested case taking up to 20 years to decide. Not surprisingly, the Punjab Government is now mulling ways to simplify procedures on partition of properties. Also under consideration is a proposal to appoint expatriates who have returned to India as "nambardars" in the villages having more than 20 nris to guard against the fraudulent manipulation of revenue records. The underlying idea is to plug the loopholes that make the expatriates vulnerable.

Evidently, the amendments have provided a relief to only a section of the nris. But, even the beneficiaries are not too happy. In the owner-tenant disputes, though the amended law provides for a speedy trial and immediate possession of property, the cases are delayed because the lower courts are overburdened.

The NRIs now perceive investments in property as a risky gamble. Balbir Singh Jalandhar MP

In many cases, the tenants manage to hang on with delaying tactics as the lower courts grant leave to contest-a grey area in the amended law. Though a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the amendments, the lower courts continue to grant leave to contest to the tenants after passing a decree in favour of the NRI.

Ostensibly, there is no uniformity in implementation of the law. "The lower courts are not following the letter of the law," laments Harchet Singh Bains, a London-based nri who owns a built-up property at Garh Shankar. Though he won legal possession of his residential property within nine weeks, it has taken him almost two years to get one of his five shops vacated. The provision allows only one commercial and one residential property to be vacated, that too just once. This is another sore point with the nris. "The amendments were a half-hearted measure to placate nris," adds Harchet.

Despite the legal hiccups, more and more nris are moving courts to benefit from the amended laws: there was a five-fold rise in the number of nris seeking consultancy at the nri Sabha in the past year. Parkash Kaur has returned from the UK after 10 years to claim her commercial property at Mahilpur, Hoshiarpur. "But I'm scared of the protracted court proceedings," says the 66-year-old.

Desperate to gain the nris' confidence over the security of their properties, the state Government is seriously pursuing its proposal to have some district courts double up as "fast-track courts" to expedite nri cases. The Government has decided to approach the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to pursue the move.

These courts will not only bring uniformity in the implementation of the amended laws but also speed up proceedings in disputes not covered by the amendments. But until that happens, homecoming will continue to be a misnomer for many NRIS.