35-year delay is unreasonable: High Court

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: Terming the thirty five-year delay in filing an application for resumption of a grant land, a Division Bench of the High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by the grandson whose grandfather had sold the land.

“Even assuming that no limitation has been prescribed for filing an application seeking resumption under the Act, yet a party ought to approach the competent authority within a reasonable time beyond which no relief can be granted. In the facts and circumstances of the case, delay of 35 years in filing an application for resumption is unreasonable and therefore, the appellant has rightly held not entitled to the relief of resumption by the Deputy Commissioner,” the Division Bench of Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde, said in their recent judgment.

Manjunath, a resident of Mulbagal in Kolar district, had approached the High Court with an appeal challenging the judgement of a single-judge bench. Four acres of land was granted in Balasandra village in Mulabagal to his grandfather in the year 1956.

His grandfather sold the land in May 1962. Manjunath filed an application in March 2016 before the Assistant Commissioner under the provisions of the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act.

The Assistant Commissioner by an order in July 2018, allowed the application and directed resumption of the land in favour of Manjunath. This order was reversed by the Deputy Commissioner in an appeal in July 2019. Manjunath then approached the High Court where a singlejudge bench heard his case and gave a judgement on March 19, 2021.

The single-judge bench based its judgement on the Supreme Court’s Nekkanti Rama Lakshmi Vs State of Karnataka and others case.

It held that the application seeking resumption of land was filed after an inordinate delay of 35 years and therefore, the land could not be granted to be resumed in favour of the appellant (Manjunath).

Manjunath then challenged it before the Division Bench which gave its judgement recently. His advocate argued that Section 11 of the Act had an overriding effect on the provisions of the Limitation Act and it does not apply to the petition seeking resumption of land.

The HC however said that “The aforesaid Section does not prescribe for any period of limitation. However, it has been held that any action whether on an application of the parties or suo motu, must be taken within a reasonable period of time.”

The HC noted that the Supreme Court had dismissed a similar petition as the delay was of 24 years. Dismissing Manjunath’s appeal, the HC said, “In the backdrop of aforesaid legal well-settled principles, we may avert to the case in hand. In the instant case, the proceeding for resumption of land was initiated after a period of 35 years. Thus, the proceedings initiated for resumption of land suffers from delay and laches, for which no explanation has been offered.” (WA 1111/2021)