Portuguese-era case resolved by Supreme Court 78 yrs after Independence

NEW DELHI: After fractional a period and respective rounds of litigation, Supreme Court approved connected Wednesday an April 30, 1974, determination of the collector of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to rescind the erstwhile Portuguese govt’s assistance of possession rights implicit onshore to Indians for cultivation.What rankled a seat of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and N K Singh was that adjacent aft 78 years of Independence the highest tribunal is engaged successful resolving disputes relating to rights conferred by assemblage powers, which exploited India’s wealthiness and resources.Dadra and Nagar Haveli was liberated from Portuguese concern successful 1954 and was integrated with India successful 1961 arsenic a Union Territory.Certain persons were granted inheritable possession rights implicit immense tracts of onshore successful Dadra and Nagar Haveli by Portuguese govt for an indefinite period, taxable to outgo of yearly rent.

Over a century, these landowners’ progeny person divided these lands betwixt them.Indian govt successful 1969 rescinded the lands allotted by Portuguese govt and reverted these to administration. These were challenged earlier Bombay HC.During pendency, D&N Land Reforms Regulation, 1971, was brought in, which stipulated that onshore allotted by Portuguese govt to persons should person been cultivated regularly.The collector recovered the onshore uncultivated and took backmost the onshore by an bid of April 30, 1974.

This was challenged successful the proceedings tribunal by heirs of radical who were fixed possession of land. Trial tribunal quashed the collector’s bid successful June 1978.Govt appealed against this successful HC, which ruled that a 1963 ruling of Lisbon tribunal connected rights of specified allottees cannot service arsenic a precedent for Indian courts and govt, successful workout of its sovereign powers, tin workout its powers to resume onshore allotted by an erstwhile assemblage govt.Dismissing appeals against the hcourt’s determination and penning a 79-page judgment, Justice Kant said, “The appellants’ pleas of waiver, acquiescence, delay, impossibility, and condonation person nary ineligible oregon factual basis, and nary of these principles render the Collector’s order, dated April 30, 1974, unsustainable.”“The Collector’s bid was not tainted by mala fides and cannot beryllium construed arsenic having been passed with the intent to disentitle the appellants from the statutory benefits nether the 1971 Land Reforms Regulation,” the seat said.