59 year old land dispute ends, Supreme Court puts an end to the legal battle that has been going on for four generations

The Supreme Court has given its final verdict on the nearly six-decade-long dispute over 15.5 bighas of land in a village in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, ending a legal battle that has been going on for four generations. The apex court overturned the decisions of the lower courts and the High Court, validating the registered sale deed of June 4, 1957.

Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice N.V. Anjaria’s bench said that this dispute which has lasted for so many years should be ended now.

What was the whole matter?

This dispute was related to 15.5 bigha land of Narsinghpur Kalan village of Haridwar. In the year 1957, the ancestors of the appellants, who were minors at that time, had purchased this land through a registered sale deed.

The appellants claimed that they had been in continuous possession of the land since purchase.

Name change took place in 1984

In the year 1984, after one of the sellers withdrew its objection, the land was mutated in favor of the buyers.

Later, during the consolidation proceedings in 1991, he demanded landholding rights. Their claim was accepted at the initial level and their occupation was also recognized in the agreement signed in 1993.

But later the case was reopened after objections from other co-landholders.

The lower courts had rejected the claim

In 1999 the Consolidation Officer rejected the claim of the appellants saying that the sale deed was not duly proved and it violated section 154 of the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act.

Subsequently, the appellate and revisional authorities also upheld the same decision. Ultimately in 2017, the High Court also rejected the petition of the appellants.

What did the Supreme Court say?

The Supreme Court held that the High Court and the consolidation authorities committed a serious legal error in holding the registered sale deed of 1957 as illegal.

The court said there was no allegation anywhere on record that the sale deed was fake, fraudulently prepared, signed under duress or by impersonation.

The Court clarified that a registered sale deed cannot be rejected merely on the basis of technical or minor discrepancies.

Discrepancy in address of witness not considered as basis

The lower courts had considered the sale deed doubtful on the basis of difference in the addresses of the witnesses.

The Supreme Court said that such minor technical discrepancies cannot vitiate the validity of a registered document, especially when there is no allegation of its being forged or prepared fraudulently.

The claim of possession also got support

The top court said that the appellants continued to claim possession of the land and there was no effective rebuttal of this claim by the respondents.

The Court said that the registered sale deed, the legal presumption in its favor, the absence of allegations of fraud or forgery and the absence of any substantial contradiction in the testimony of the witness proved that the findings of the lower courts were not sustainable.

The lawsuit lasted for four generations

The Supreme Court, while commenting in its judgment, said that the case which initially started as mere name transfer proceedings, over time transformed into a seven-decade-long judicial process, passing through several legal fora.

The court said that this litigation continued for four generations and ultimately the Supreme Court had to intervene and finally resolve the dispute.

With this decision, the legal battle that had been going on for almost 59 years over this historic land dispute of Haridwar finally came to an end.