SC shuts small property case pursued for over five decades

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rung down curtain on a dispute over 500 square yards of residential land pursued in a village of Hyderabad district for over five decades since 1967, dismissing the appeal of M Durga Singh and others.

The original litigants from both sides passed away as the case the Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta dealt is "the predecessors-in-interest versus the predecessors of the respondent."

The Bench could not resist from putting on record that "the tenacity and stamina with which the appellants have been litigants for decades just be admired, but nothing else."

It not only dismissed the appeal but also imposed cost of Rs 50,000 "for taking several courts for a ride through continuous and fruitless litigation spanning several decades." It held that the special court and the High Court were right in dismissing the dispute.

The dispute was raised in 1967 on just 20 square yards of land encroached by Yadagiri and others while the extend of land became 33.5 square yards in the paper book. The trial court dismissed it in 1975, holding the appellants could not prove the title or boundaries of the property in dispute while the respondents had a house on the said land.

Another dispute filed in 1975, accusing the respondents of encroaching 79.49 sq yards. It was compromised in 1979 for Rs 5887.50 and the appellants gave up all their claims on the disputed land.

They, however, became active again in 1987 on the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act came into force in 1982, reigniting the dispute charging the respondents with grabbing 139 sq yards of land.

The Apex Court referred to eight cases dismissed by various courts, stating that the record of the appeal shows a couple of other proceedings were also instituted confirming the appellants as "chronic litigants."

They came before it after the special court set up to decide the cases of the land grabbers dismissed their case in 1994, nor did they succeed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court which also dismissed it in December 2002.

The Apex Court took on record the Special Court's finding that the appellants failed to establish their ownership nor could they show the respondents had trespassed on the property without legal entitlement to be dubbed land grabbers under the Act, particularly when neither the land's location was clear nor the area clearly identified.