SC rules against ‘land grab’ by state

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 9

Maintaining that the state can’t forcefully dispossess citizens of their private property without following due process of law, the Supreme Court has come to the rescue of an 80-year-old illiterate woman from Hamirpur district whose 3.34 hectare land was forcibly taken by the Himachal Pradesh Government 53 years ago for constructing a road. To forcibly dispossess a person of his private property, without following due process of law, would be violative of a human right, as also the constitutional right (to property) under Article 300A of the Constitution, a Bench headed by Justice Indu Malhotra said. The Bench, which also included Justice  Ajay Rastogi, said the state cannot invoke the doctrine of adverse possession to perfect title over land grabbed from private citizens. Treating the case as a “deemed acquisition”, it exercised its extraordinary powers under Article 142 and ordered the state government to pay compensation to her in eight weeks on the basis of the rate that was paid for an adjacent piece of land. Additionally, it ordered the state to pay Rs 10 lakh as legal costs to her.

“The Appellant could not have been forcibly dispossessed of her property without any legal sanction, and without following due process of law, and depriving her payment of just compensation, being a fundamental right on the date of forcible dispossession in 1967,” it noted.

To start with, right to property was a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution, but in 1978, it was repealed and made a Constitutional right under Article 300A which says, “No person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.”

Appellant Vidya Devi’s land was forcibly taken by the state in 1967-68 for the construction of Nadaun-Sujanpur road without taking recourse to acquisition proceedings, or following due process of law. Being an illiterate person, she was not aware of the legal remedies available to her.

In 2004, some persons, whose land was also acquired by the state, approached the Himachal Pradesh High Court. The HC ordered the state to acquire their lands under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and give compensation to them under the law.

It was only after that that she moved the HC in 2010 demanding compensation for her land. The state government opposed it contending that had perfected the title by 42 years of adverse possession and that the road had already been constructed over the land in question. Finally, in 2013, the HC dismissed the petition and advised her to file a civil suit.

Allowing her appeal against the HC order, the top court said, “In a democratic polity governed by the rule of law, the state could not have deprived a citizen of his property without the sanction of law…. The state being a welfare state governed by the rule of law cannot arrogate to itself a status beyond what is provided by the Constitution.”

What court said

• State can’t deprive citizens of their property sans sanction of law
• It can’t arrogate to itself a status beyond what is provided under the Constitution
• A welfare state can’t use doctrine of ‘adverse possession’ to grab a citizen’s property
• HP to compensate illiterate woman whose 3.34 hectare was forcibly taken for a road

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.