Karnataka high court imposes cost on petitioners for misuse of legal process

Time of India

4 days ago

Bengaluru: The Karnataka high court imposed a Rs 10 lakh cost on six petitioners for concealing crucial facts and misusing legal procedures in a land acquisition case.
"The petition, replete with suppression and bereft of bona fides, must meet its dismissal, not dismissal simpliciter, but with an exemplary cost.
If the petition is now entertained on any score, it would amount to putting a premium on the litigative persistence of the petitioners and rewarding abuse of the process and tacit fraud played on this court.
This forms the ninth petition on the same cause of action, seeking the very same prayer, differently worded, after the dismissal of eight rounds of litigation, all of which are suppressed in the subject petition," Justice M Nagaprasanna observed in his order.
The case involves legal representatives of Venkata Bhovi and Hanumantha Bhovi, who received 2 acres and 20 guntas of land in Nagadevanahalli, Bengaluru, through an official memorandum dated Jan 9, 1979. The land was previously under their unauthorised occupation, and the deputy commissioner subsequently granted them ownership, recording their names in revenue records.
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The land acquisition process began on July 31, 1986, with a preliminary notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, followed by a final notification on Jan 22, 1987.
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The compensation was fixed at Rs 65,000 per acre plus Rs 15,000 per acre in solatium and interest on June 6, 1987. The divisional commissioner deposited the award amount on Oct 9, 1987.
Following Venkata's death, his legal heirs sought to remove the property from acquisition through various representations. They cited a draft notification under Section 48(1) of the Act from April 23, 1993. The petitioners approached the authorities on Jan 24, 2025, requesting a no-objection certificate, claiming their lands were excluded from acquisition based on a Sept 3, 1993 notification.
Justice M Nagaprasanna noted that the petitioners' latest argument relied on a previously unmentioned 1993 notification. The court observed that this revelation came after eight rounds of litigation, characterising it as judicial manipulation rather than justice-seeking.
"What I witness is not the pursuit of justice, but a game of judicial hide and seek, where one of the family members of the grantee seeks invocation of the writ jurisdiction, while the other member hides.
Later, the other member seeks, and the former hides. Such cynical use of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India must be arrested in its tracks," Justice Nagaprasanna observed while dismissing the petition by Gangamma and five others to prevent abuse of judicial process and ensure finality in judicial decisions.
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3-decade saga
The first round of litigation started in 1993. In 1994, the high court dismissed the petition.
The second challenge was made in 1997 and the same was also dismissed. The third one was a suit filed in the civil court in 1993 which also met the same fate. In 2003, another petition was filed in the high court and was dismissed. In 2004, a second civil suit was filed and the same was dismissed as not maintainable. In 2007, the children of Vektata filed a petition on the same cause of action and it was dismissed on the grounds of delay.
The order was challenged before a division bench in 2012 and the order of the single bench was affirmed in Nov 2022. In between, during the pendency of the writ appeal, a petition was filed in 2016 which was eighth in the series. However, when the petition was pending, the latest petition was filed on March 4, 2025. The petition filed in 2016 was withdrawn.