This was a well-knit plan which was launched across the border in an attempt to change the demography of the Jammu region and this process was not hidden from governments it was going on under the nose of the authorities in the state for the last 17 years, to accommodate people from Muslim communities in the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu by legalizing the illegal occupants of the land and making them the real owner. Although this law has been announced unconstitutional

According to the Census Reports of 2001, the Hindu Population in Jammu was 65% whereas the Muslim Population was 31%, but in the next census 2011 it was visible that the Muslim Population in the Region saw an increase by 3% whereas Hindu Population declined by 3% in the region, the reason for the same is clearly visible.

The changes are also visible by the drastic increase in number of mosque, in the year 1994 there were only three in the Jammu city whereas the number grew to 100+ in the subsequent years. There are more than 25000 illegal beneficiaries of the Roshni Act in the Jammu region 90% of which belongs to the Muslim Community whereas only 4500 beneficiaries are there in the Kashmir region.  

In 2001, the state government enacted the law, the J&K state land (vesting of ownership rights to the occupants) act 2001 or Roshni Act. Under the law people, who were occupying state land illegally upto 1990, had to pay about Rs 20 lakh per kanal land (1kanal= 0.8 acre) to get ownership rights.  

The act was named as Roshni Act so that the revenue generated from it would be used in power sector.

In May 2005, during Ghulam Nabi Azad's government, amendments were brought in the law.Instead of 1990, the cut of date was extended to 2004.  It also came up with several clauses making illegal occupants, who had raised residential houses and commercial buildings on the state land illegally, to pay 10 to 15 percent of the total of actual price to get the legal rights of the state land.

The final blow was agriculture land. For agriculture land illegal occupant was asked to pay Rs 100 per kanal.

It was in the year 2014 that a report was submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which revealed that, instead of earning an estimated revenue of Rs.25000 crore, the government earned only an amount of Rs 76 Crore between the years 2007 and 2013 which simply shows that it was a policy which was meant to make money

Investigations into the land transfers subsequently found that land in Gulmarg had been given over to ineligible beneficiaries. In 2009, the State Vigilance Organisation registered an FIR against several government officials for alleged criminal conspiracy to illegally possess and vest ownership of state land to occupants who did not satisfy criteria under the Roshni Act.

The main beneficiaries under the Act were the sister concerns of the State Political parties i.e. Nawai Subah Trust of the National Conference and Khidmat Trust of the Congress.

The list includes Haseeb Drabu, the then finance minister in the Mufti Muhammed Sayeed-led state government, and his brother. The list also includes Mehboob Beg (son of Mirza Afzal Beg, a close associate of late Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah), influential businessmen like Mushtaq Ahmad Chaya and Krishen Amla (who is close to the top leaders of the Congress party) and former top bureaucrats such as Khurshid Ahmad Ganai and Tanveer Jahan.

The Congress party owns one of the costliest pieces of real estate in the heart of Srinagar city under the name of the 'Khidmat Trust' whose ownership was transferred to the trustee under the Act

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in November 2018 restrained the beneficiaries of the Roshni Act from carrying any transaction related to the ownership of land transferred to them through the scheme.

The SAC has ordered cancellation of all pending applications seeking vesting of ownership rights of state lands to their occupants. However, cases where such rights have already been transferred will hold. 

The Jammu and Kashmir high court on 12 March 2020 pulled up the Union territory’s administration for alleged irregularities in land allotments under the erstwhile Roshni Act and said it will decide on March 18 whether to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

The J&K government on October 31 2020 decided to declare all the actions taken under the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001, under which 20 lakh kanals of land was to be transferred to existing occupants, as “null and void”, and has decided to retrieve the land within six months.

“The J&K government has decided to implement the High Court order, where it declared the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 as amended from time to time as unconstitutional, contrary to law and unsustainable.