Karnataka High Court: A Division Bench comprising of B.V. Nagarathna and Jyoti Mulimani, JJ. reversed a 1993 order, holding that all titles, rights and interests of the Koladamatt over the land in question had been extinguished by a government notification which vested the land in the State Government following the Mutt’s failure to make an application to get registered as an applicant.
The land had been leased to the appellant in 1967 to run an automobile industry, with permission to put up structures on the land. The land in question is a part of a larger extant of land which was granted as a minor inam to the Mutt in 1897. However, a government notification dated 04.04.1970 notified 01.07.1970 as the date for vesting all inam lands in the State Government, following which the appellant made an application for registration of occupancy rights that was granted in an order dated 1.9.1984. The Mutt challenged this before a single judge of the High Court who allowed its writ petition and set aside the Land Tribunal’s 1984 order, and that decision had been challenged in the instant writ appeal.
The appellant contended that the Mutt lost all rights, interests and title in the land since it did not make an application for getting itself registered as an occupant as required by the Act. Therefore, they claimed that since the Mutt is not aggrieved by the Land Tribunal’s order, it does not have the locus standi to file the writ petition.
The Court observed that upon the vesting of all inam lands in the State Government, certain rights were reserved in the inamdars and tenants, but since the Inamdar did not make an application under the Act, it did not seek to claim any right or privilege under the Act since the former is sine qua non for the latter. Since the Mutt failed to file an application, all its rights under the Act stand extinguished. The Mutt had the right to raise contentions against the appellant’s application before the Tribunal and to that narrow extent, it could file a writ petition, but it otherwise had no locus standi to file the writ petition since it was not an aggrieved party and would derive no benefit from itself. The Bench also stated that the single judge erred in holding that the Act is applicable only to agricultural lands, since it could apply to non-agricultural lands such as uncultivated lands as well.
Since there was a subsisting lease of the land in question on the date of vesting and its possession was with the tenant i.e., the appellant, the holder would be the appellant and not the Mutt. Possession of inam land in the hands of the tenants despite the vesting of the land in the State Government is to confer certain rights and benefits upon them under the Act, and “the Government shall not dispossess any person of any land in respect of which he is considered prima facie entitled to be registered as an occupant.” It found that the Mutt cannot be the occupant of the private building/structures constructed on the land, and it would vest in the person who owned it immediately before the date of vesting i.e., in the appellant.
Court, therefore, stated that the lessee/appellant is entitled to registration of occupancy rights and the Mutt couldn’t claim any benefit under the Act. It set aside the order by the single judge and allowed the writ appeals.[S. M. Kannappa Automobiles v. Koladamatt Mahasamsthana, 2020 SCC OnLine Kar 964, decided on 29-07-2020]
