Begur Nageshwara temple inam land dispute goes back to trial court

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The dispute over the ownership of the ‘inam land’ of the Begur Nageshwara temple has been remanded back to the trial court by the High Court of Karnataka.

One of the parties presented an order of the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT) which was not considered by the trial court while passing a decree.

The HC therefore sent the case back with a direction to the trial court to consider this new evidence. The legal heirs of R Krishna Murthy and two more sons of the late Rama Shastry; BR Nagabushana and Subbarama Shastry approached the HC with an appeal against the heirs of Doddanarayana Reddy, his daughters Bhagyamma, Manjula and son N Ramareddy.

The originated when Doddanarayana Reddy claimed that the disputed land was an ‘inam land’ endowed to Nageshwara temple of Begur village and he was cultivating the land as a tenant on ‘wara’ basis which meant he paid a ‘contribution’ called ‘wara’ to Subbarama Shastry, the archaka of the temple.

Since the Inam Abolition law was passed, Doddanarayana Reddy sought occupancy rights on the property. The matter was transferred to the Land Tribunal which granted occupancy rights in his favour on December 31, 1981.

Claiming that Rama Shastry, Naga bhushana and Subbarama Shastry were interfering in his property, Reddy approached the court again in 1998 which gave its judgement in 2005. The court decreed the suit in Reddy’s favour.

Rama Shastry, Nagabhushana and Subbarama Shastry then approached the HC with an appeal in 2006. Justice HT Narendra Prasad heard the petition and gave his judgement recently. The three claimed that the Special Deputy Commissioner had rejected their claim of occupancy rights after which they approached the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal.

The KAT granted them occupancy rights by an order dated April 5, 1982. Therefore, they have right and title over the property. But the trial court had not considered this aspect and granted a decree in favour of Reddy.

They had not produced the KAT order before the trial court and were brought before the HC for the first time. The HC in its judgment said, “For the first time, the defendants/appellants have produced the order passed by the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal before this Court by filing an application under Order 41 Rule 27 of CPC before this Court. Under these circumstances, to give one more opportunity to the parties, I am of the opinion that the matter requires to be remitted back to the trial court to reconsider the matter afresh.”

Disposing the petition, the HC said, “The trial court is directed to decide the matter resh, in accordance with law, after giving opportunity to both the parties". (RFA 925/2006)