High Court of Jammu And Kashmir: While deciding upon the present writ petition wherein the petitioners have prayed that the respondents be asked to not cause any sort of interference into their land and should be desisted on that ground, the Single Bench of M.K Hanjura, J. dismissed the petition and held that the attached annexure by the petitioners spells out that the land in question is State land and is in the illegal occupation of the petitioners.
As per the facts, the petitioners are the owners in possession of the land situated at Village Zainakote, Srinagar along with a chunk of the State land “Khalisa Sarkar” is also in their possession for the last 23 years, which further has vested in them under the “Roshni Act” subsequently applying for vesting of ownership rights before the respondents. The petitioners state that they are being asked to vacate the land without being granted any compensation in return for which they are liable.
The High Court perused the records and found favour with submissions of Respondent 2 Chief Engineer, PWD who stated that no land has been acquired by his office for any purpose which leads to no question of payment of compensation to the petitioners. Respondents 3 and 4 stated that the compensation amount in lieu of the land acquired for the purpose of widening of National Highway was released in favour of the State. As per the revenue extracts obtained in respect of the said land, petitioners do not have any proprietary right over the said land and in compliance to the revenue records the said land has been shown to be in the occupation of the department of public work.
Therefore, the petition was found to be on no merits and deserved to be dismissed as Annexure (p1) attached to the petition is an extract of Girdawari relating to the land on which the petitioners lay their claim, and the said annexure states that petitioners are in illegal occupation of the land and for which they cannot seek any compensation. [Syed Manzoor Ahmad v. State, 2018 SCC OnLine J&K 256, dated 23-04-2018]