Land grab court can’t try cases of possession through sale deed: Karnataka HC

The Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Special Court will not have any jurisdiction to try cases in which parties have been put in possession of the land/property through registered sale deeds, the High Court of Karnataka has ruled. 

A division bench comprising Justices G Narendar and Vijayakumar A Patil remanded the matter back to the special court for fresh consideration, especially the maintainability of the complaint filed by the Forest Department, in view of a registered sale deed in relation to the property. 

The petitioners, M A Mohammed Sanaulla and his three brothers — all residents of Chikkasanne village in Bengaluru rural district — had challenged the summons issued on May 13, 2023, by the special court in land-grabbing cases at Bengaluru. The complaint was filed by the Range Forest Officer (RFO), Devanahalli, in 2020, claiming that the petitioners were in possession of forest land. 

The petitioners asserted that they possess the title over the property through the registered conveyance deed dated August 19, 1977, and hence provisions of the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act, 2011, do not apply to their case. 

The division bench noted that prima facie the possession of the land by the petitioners is through a legal entitlement as a sale deed exists and the same had acquired legal sanctity under relevant laws since 1981. 

“The said sale in favour of the petitioners has been preceded by four earlier sale deeds and an order of grant by the state government. Thus, we are of the prima facie opinion that the possession of the petitioners even assuming for argument’s sake that the lands are indeed lands of the forest, the same would not constitute an act of land grabbing and the same is required to be adjudicated as a pure and simple title suit,” the bench said. 

The division bench said that the special court will have to keep in mind the observations made by the Supreme Court in Om Prakash Singh vs M Lingamaiah and other cases where the top court had considered the extant and the jurisdiction of the special court trying similar offences under the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982.