One man’s fight for justice
Compensation claim harks back to dark days of apartheid
IN A landmark court case, a retired businessman is challenging the R450 000 compensation paid for his late father’s expropriated land, which is said to be worth in excess of R10 million.
The Supreme Court of Appeal will hear arguments on the protracted fight for justice between Pathmanathan Runganathan Naidoo and the Land Claims Commission next month.
The Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform is a codefendant.
Naidoo, 79, of Durban, is being represented by advocate Hendrik Havenga SC, instructed by Hassan, Parsee and Falconer Attorneys.
The retired builder won the first leg of his quest for justice on September 27, 2012, after the Land Claims Court in Durban ruled in his favour.
Acting Judge MJ Mpshe declared the agreement null and void, which the parties reached on November 22, 2002.
This gave rise to the payment of R50 000 each for Naidoo’s nine plots of farming and other land.
Judge Mpshe concluded that Ranjive Nirghin, the then project manager of the Commission, had misrepresented to Naidoo that the commission had a blanket payment policy of R50 000 for a plot of land, irrespective of the size, location or zoning.
The Commission is appealing against the verdict.
If the decision is upheld by the second highest court in the land, it could trigger an avalanche of claims by property owners in a similar predicament to Naidoo.
Judge Mpshe heard Nirghin had informed Naidoo the Commission had “a take it or leave it” policy.
In other words if he did not accept the R450 000 compensation for the land expropriated during the era of the Group Areas Act, he would end up getting nothing.
Judge Mpshe said it was significant that Nirghin had failed to disclose to Naidoo that the Commission relied on a formula to calculate the compensation figures.
Therefore, the court concluded that Nirghin’s claim about the Commission having a blanket payment policy could not stand. Judge Mpshe said Naidoo had a constitutional right to receive “just and equitable compensation”.
Today three companies in Gillits Road, Pinetown, specialising in the manufacturing of tractors, road machinery and other businesses, occupy the two plots of land totalling 28 acres where Naidoo’s father farmed bananas.
The wood and iron home on the same land, which they vacated 48 years ago, has been converted into offices.
Acccording to the court papers, calculations by his legal team show that Naidoo ought to have been compensated R982 500 for the 23 580 square metre land and R814 000 for the 19 537 square metre land in Pinetown.
After being harassed for some time by the apartheid regime, Naidoo’s father sold the two plots of land, zoned as a white area, to a white man for R120 000 because the harassment had become too much.
Naidoo said he was similarly grossly undercompensated for 14 860 square metres of land in Buffelsbosch, Shallcross, for which his legal team said he should have been compensated R6.1 million.
That land, like the plots in Kranskloof spanning 33 532 square metres and 12 141 metres for which Naidoo ought to have been paid R1,3 million and R505 875 respectively, was previously agricultural land.
The court said the Commission and its officials had a duty to ensure Naidoo was assisted from beginning to end with his claims and to settle the claims in a just and equitable manner.
“Following the representations, which Nirghin made about the R50 000 settlement figure for each plot of land, Naidoo and Thabatha Agatha Shange of the Department of Land Affairs entered into a settlement agreement.
“In it the parties recognised that Naidoo was entitled to restitution for the properties, which were expropriated. The State accepted that the compensation received at the time of dispossession was unfair. After Naidoo learnt that Nirghin had misrepresented the figures to him, he challenged the decision. Nirghin had misrepresented to Naidoo,” said Judge Mpshe.
In papers filed in the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Commission claimed Naidoo’s case should be dismissed because he did not launch his application in the Land Claims Court timeously.
The action should have been before the court by 2005 and not in 2007 because the three-year window period had apparently become prescribed in 2005.
Judge Mpshe found there was no merit in the Commission's claim about the prescription period.
The Commission denied that Nirghin had misrepresented to Naidoo that the Commission had a blanket compensation policy.
“Nirghin conveyed to Naidoo that he was mandated to offer him R50 000 each for the plots of land. Naidoo failed to show that what Nirghin had conveyed to him during the negotiations was untrue.” “Nirghin did not misrepresent to Naidoo.”
Naidoo told POST he had spent hundreds of thousands in legal fees in his quest for justice, following harassment of his father by the apartheid regime.