4 generations and 70 years later, SC delivers verdict on 15.5-bigha land dispute

A 15.5-bigha land parcel, a legal battle spanning 70 years across four generations, and finally, a verdict from the Supreme Court. Two generations of the litigating family passed away before the case reached its conclusion, while the third and fourth generations lived to hear the final judgment. Remarkably, when the sale deed that lay at the heart of the dispute was executed, even the judges who eventually decided the case had not yet been born.

The dispute centred on ownership of 15.5 bighas of land in Nasirpur Kalan village in Haridwar. Sharafat Ali had purchased the land through a registered sale deed on June 4, 1957. Nearly seven decades later, in June this year, a Supreme Court bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice N.V. Anjaria, upheld the validity of the sale deed, overturning the judgments of the trial court as well as the Allahabad High Court.

To understand the origins of the dispute, one has to go back to 1957. Ali, in whose name the land was purchased, was a minor at the time. This meant that the property had been bought by Ali's father on his behalf. As the litigation dragged on for decades, Ali himself passed away. The legal battle was eventually carried forward by his heirs, making it a rare case in which four generations of the same family became embroiled in a single property dispute.

In the judgment, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed that the dispute had originated during mutation proceedings, which is the process of updating government land records after a change in ownership. It later became entangled in proceedings under the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, and subsequent land consolidation processes.

The appellants suffered repeated setbacks before the lower courts and other land dispute resolution forums. Despite losing before both the trial court and the Allahabad High Court, they persisted with their claim and ultimately approached the Supreme Court.

Court records show that during the mutation proceedings, the original seller had initially objected to the transfer but later withdrew the objection, allowing the revenue authorities to proceed. However, when land consolidation began in the village years later, the appellants discovered that their names had never been entered as owners in the official records, with the land continuing to stand in the seller's name.

Several attempts by the Revenue Department to broker a settlement also failed. The dispute eventually travelled from the lower courts to the High Court and finally to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the appellants.

The verdict has brought relief not only to the family but also to residents of Nasirpur Kalan, many of whom believe the resolution of the decades-old dispute will pave the way for long-pending development works and remove a lingering source of uncertainty for the village.

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