In a significant verdict, the Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to identify and retrieve valuable land that had been given on lease to private entities during the British regime and which continues to be in possession of those entities, either on payment, or even non-payment, of a paltry rent.
Justice M. Dhandapani directed the Chief Secretary and the Revenue Secretary to issue appropriate instructions to the Commissioner of Land Administration as well as the Commission of Land Survey and Settlement to forthwith begin the process of identifying such land and retrieve it from the clutches of the occupiers.
The judge said he had come across many cases in which private individuals and entities were claiming ownership to public properties on the basis of documents supposedly executed during the British regime. Such properties were often found to be in prime locations and their current value ran to several crores of rupees.
“It is to be pointed out that not all the documents given in the pre-independence era would hold good in the post-independence period as the State government necessarily has an interest on behalf of its citizenry in the matter,” the judge said. and directed the High Court Registry to mark a copy of his order to the Chief Secretary.
The judge passed the order while dismissing two writ petitions filed by Church of South India (CSI) Trust Association, Coimbatore Diocese, seeking ‘patta’ for 12.66 acres in Erode district on the ground that H.A. Popely of London Missionary Society had purchased it from the British government at an auction held in 1905.
However, after sifting through voluminous documents, including communications between the British officers with respect to the auction, the judge found that what had been sold to Popely by the British government was only the building housing the Sub-Collector’s bungalow on 1.7 acres out of the compounded premises of 12.66 acres. He pointed out that the conditions of sale of the building for ₹12,910 stated that the purchaser must continue to pay ‘ground rent’ at the rate of ₹1 (one rupee) per acre per annum, besides ‘quit rent’ for the entire 12.66 acres. Levy of such rents would indicate that the land was only leased out and not sold, the judge said.
Though the CSI Trust claimed that the rents were in the nature of tax levied by the British which considered every citizen to be a tenant under the Crown, the judge refused to accept such a contention. He went by the dictionary meanings of rent and tax and held that what had been collected was only rent towards lease of land.
The writ petitioner had claimed to have acquired the property from London Missionary Society in 1965 and since then, it had constructed schools, college, hospitals and old age homes over the entire property. However, it did not take steps to obtain ‘patta’ until 2010 when the Erode Detailed Development Scheme was formulated.
Under the scheme, it was decided to acquire 1.93 acres from the CSI Trust for laying an 80-feet bypass road. On coming to know about it, the CSI Trust obtained ‘patta’ for the 12.66 acres from a Settlement Officer on June 30, 2010. However, the Commissioner of Survey and Settlement reversed the grant of ‘patta’, leading to the present litigation.
Holding that the trust had no right to the land since its conveyor, Popely, himself was not a rightful owner of the property, the judge said there was no need for the government to acquire the land from the petitioner trust since the entire 12.66 acres belonged to none but the State government after Independence.
