Land Dispute - HP Village Common Land (Vesting and Utilisation) Act

STATE OF HP Vs SIRI DUTT 29.09.2010
GS SINGHVI & ASOK KUMAR GANGULY, JJ.
STATE OF HP Vs PREM DUTT

Civil Appeal Nos. 3751–3752 of 2002 with Civil Appeal No. 4109 of 2002

HP Vil­lage Com­mon Land (Vest­ing and Util­i­sa­tion) Act, 1974 — Sec­tion 3 (3) — Land Dis­pute — respon­dents’ asser­tion that they are in indi­vid­ual pos­ses­sion of suit land was also denied — OPP — (3) Whether rev­enue entries about suit land are wrong, ille­gal? Rest of land of Khe­wat No.23 Khatuni No.54 to 62 mea­sur­ing 35–7 Bighas is recorded in indi­vid­ual pos­ses­sion of dif­fer­ent per­sons as co-sharers and part of land of Khe­wat No.23 Khat­u­ani No.63 is recorded in pos­ses­sion of “SHARE AAM” and this mea­sures 8–15 Bighas — land which was shown in indi­vid­ual pos­ses­sion of cer­tain co-owners was con­tin­ued to be shown as such and land ear­lier recorded as “SHARE AAM” was recorded in that capac­ity.” trial Court then referred to Sec­tion 3 of 1974 Act and held as under: “It is, there­fore, implicit that own­er­ship in name of State of Himachal Pradesh qua land in suit got changed by virtue of Pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 3 of Com­mon Lands Act — Vide this sec­tion all rights, title, and inter­est of any land owner in land in any estate stand extin­guished free from all encum­brances vest­ing such rights in State of Himachal Pradesh — entries about suit land have rightly been changed after com­ing into oper­a­tion of Com­mon lands Act, so issue No.3 decided against plain­tiffs, Major­ity of land in suit is shown in com­mon use of vil­lages and even PW 1 Dina Nath con­cede that all own­ers of vil­lage are pos­sess­ing land and every per­son can cut grass from any por­tion of land — Suit in entirety is not main­tain­able as plain­tiffs are not own­ers of suit land but suit is main­tain­able to extent of land they are recorded in indi­vid­ual pos­ses­sion, can not be dis­turbed unless they are paid amount by way of com­pen­sa­tion under sec­tion 3(3) of Com­mon Lands Act.” 3.3 On plead­ings of par­ties, trial court framed fol­low­ing issues: (1) Whether suit land is not a Shami­lat land as alleged? OPP — (2) Whether plain­tiffs are own­ers and in pos­ses­sion of suit land as alleged? (4) Whether suit is barred under pro­vi­sions of HP Vil­lage Com­mons land Act? 3.4 After con­sid­er­ing lead­ings and evi­dence of par­ties, trial Court neg­a­tived respon­dents’ claim of own­er­ship and declared that by virtue of Sec­tion 3(1)©, all rights, title and inter­est of land own­ers stood extin­guished and land vested in State Gov­ern­ment — (3) State Gov­ern­ment shall be liable to pay, and landown­ers whose rights have been extin­guished under sub– sec­tion (1) of this sec­tion shall be enti­tled to receive amount in lieu thereof at fol­low­ing rates:- (i) for land reserved for graz­ing and other com­mon pur­poses under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of Sec­tion 8, five times annual land rev­enue includ­ing rates and cesses charge­able thereon; and (ii) for remain­ing land, fif­teen times annual land rev­enue includ­ing rates and cesses charge­able there: Pro­vided that where land vested in State Gov­ern­ment under this Act is not assessed to land rev­enue, same shall be con­strued to be assessed as on sim­i­lar land in estate and if not avail­able in estate then in adjoin­ing estate or estates, as case may be — (2) land reserved under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of this sec­tion shall be demar­cated by such Rev­enue Offi­cer and in such man­ner as may be pre­scribed — Rules — (2) On receipt of details of sham­lat land under sub– rule (1), Col­lec­tor shall pro­ceed to take over pos­ses­sion of land under sub-sections (5) and (6) of sec­tion 3 — Muta­tion of land in favour of State Gov­ern­ment.- After pos­ses­sion of sham­lat land has been taken under pre­ced­ing rule, Col­lec­tor shall ask Tehsil Rev­enue Offi­cer to mutate land in favour of State Gov­ern­ment — Demar­ca­tion of land under sec­tion 8.– (1) On receipt of infor­ma­tion in Form ‘A’ Col­lec­tor shall start a file of demar­ca­tion of land for graz­ing and com­mon pur­poses and land to be ear­marked for allotable pool and send same to Tehsil Rev­enue Offi­cer for proper demar­ca­tion of land for graz­ing and com­mon pur­poses and for allotable pool — Prepa­ra­tion of records of unmea­sured shami­lat land — Sec­tion 3 pro­vides for vest­ing of rights in cer­tain lands in State Gov­ern­ment — In these appeals, we are not con­cerned with lands cov­ered by clauses (a) and (b) of Sec­tion 3(1) because suit lands formed part of erst­while State of Bha­gat, which was within ter­ri­tory of State of Himachal Pradesh imme­di­ately before 1.11.1966 — In terms of Sec­tion 3(1)©, rights of land own­ers in these lands vested in State Gov­ern­ment free from all encum­brances — entries con­tained in jam­a­ban­dis also do not prove open and unin­ter­rupted pos­ses­sion of respon­dents over suit land — On basis of these entries, respon­dents can­not claim that they have acquired title over suit land by adverse pos­ses­sion — Even learned Sin­gle Judge of High Court did not find them to be in exclu­sive pos­ses­sion of suit land — In terms of these pro­vi­sions, Col­lec­tor is required to give notice to land own­ers to deliver pos­ses­sion of land — ques­tion which remains to be con­sid­ered is whether pay­ment of com­pen­sa­tion is a con­di­tion prece­dent to tak­ing over of pos­ses­sion of land vested in State Gov­ern­ment under Sec­tion 3(1).

Land Dispute - HP Village Common Land (Vesting and Utilisation) Act