School can’t stop neighbour using only road to property: HC

S Shyam Prasad

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka dismissed an appeal filed by a school management challenging a lower court order which had allowed a neighbour to use the only road available to access their property.

The school land was purchased from the brother of a neighbouring plot owner. Vidyashilp Academy Education Institution, Shivanahalli in Yelahanka, Bengaluru approached the HC with the appeal against the March 14, 2023 order of a civil court which had allowed the application of YN Ashwatha and his children YA Srinivasa Murthy and YA Anuja to use the road passing through the property of the school to access their own land which was adjacent to it.

The lower court order was an injunction against the school from preventing Ashwatha and his family members from using the road that passes through the school property.

The Trial Court had come to the conclusion that there is prima facie case that Ashwatha and his family have no alternate road to reach their property and granted the injunction in their favour. The final verdict in the civil case is still pending.

The School approached the HC against the injunction order Ashwatha’s family claimed that the road passing through the school property was the only road through which they could reach their land.

They sought the right of easement which they had enjoyed even before the school was established on the said property.

Both Ashwath’s land and the land on which the school is built is the ancestral property of Ashwath’s family. Ashwath’s brother Kempanna had converted the agricultural land which came as his share in the property partition and sold it to the school.

The access to Ashwath’s portion of land from the Bengaluru-Ballari Road was only through the property of Kempanna.