A Single Bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar while dealing with a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of the India observed that mere entry regarding sale in the revenue record in the absence of the particulars of the sale pertaining to name of the vendor and the date of the sale etc. and without there being any reference to any sale deed, cannot be relied upon.
The court was dealing with a petition wherein the petitioners had sought a direction upon the respondents to either acquire the land, which according to the petitioners, is owned by them, but has been taken over and utilised by the respondents without following the procedure prescribed under law and to pay compensation to them or in the alternative return it to them.
The respondents while denying any liability to pay compensation contended that the land for which compensation is being claimed was donated by father of the petitioners to the Respondents, and that as per Rule 24 A of the Land Acquisition Rules, a person who has donated the land to the community development and MES/PWD, Education Department for construction of roads/canal and for other public purposes before 1977 and possession has already been taken over by the Government Department, shall not be entitled to any compensation. Besides, the Respondents also challenged the maintainability of the petition being barred by time.
The court after considering the pleadings of the parties and the record of the case noted that there was nothing in the record to show that any portion of the land of the petitioners was either sold or donated to any of the respondents as claimed by the respondents. The Court observed, ‘respondents have not produced even a photocopy of any document relating to the alleged sale of the land in question in favour of the PWD. Similarly the respondents have not produced any record with regard to the alleged donation of any portion of land by any of the petitioners in favour of any of the respondents nor there is any entry in the revenue record to this effect. Thus, it cannot be stated that the land occupied by the respondents has either been purchased or the same has been donated by the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners to them’.
The court as such held that the provisions contained in Rule 24A of the J&K Land Acquisition Rules would not come to the rescue of the respondents
Further, the court while relying upon the case titled as Vidhya Devi vs Himachal Pradesh and others, (2020) 2 SCC 569 observed that on the date when the land belonging to the petitioners, was taken over by the respondents, the right to property was a fundamental right in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir and even now it continues to a constitutional right in terms of Article 300-A of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the petitioners cannot be divested of their right to the land in question without adopting due course of law. Moreover, the Court held that no amount of delay in approaching the court would disentitle the petitioners from claiming their right over the land which is admittedly in occupation of the respondents.
The court as such allowed the petition and directed the respondents to initiate and conclude the process of acquisition of the land belonging to the petitioners and in terms of law within a period of six months, or in the event, they do not intend to retain the land, to return the same to the petitioners and pay rental compensation to them at the rate to be assessed by the Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri for the period with effect from the date they came in occupation of the land in question, until the date, on which, they will hand over the possession of the land to the petitioners.
