SC orders J-K to pay compensation for 1953 Police Station land
The Supreme Court on Monday, August 17, directed the Jammu and Kashmir administration to pay compensation and rentals to a descendant of farmers whose land was forcibly taken more than 73 years ago, without any acquisition proceedings, to build a police station at Kangan in Ganderbal.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana was hearing a plea by Abdul Rashid Wani, filed through lawyer Mahfooz Ahsan Nazki, challenging a 2022 Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court ruling that had dismissed his petition seeking possession of the land over a 68-year delay in raising the claim.
Land measuring seven kanals and 18 marlas at Kangan was taken over in 1953 for the police station without acquisition or compensation, according to the petition. The Supreme Court said it could not direct fresh land acquisition proceedings given the nearly seven-decade delay, but ordered the land acquisition officer to begin acquisition proceedings from 2021, when Wani first approached the high court.
The bench also directed that rentals be calculated and paid to Wani for the period from 1953, when the land was taken over, with the final amount for both the acquisition and the rentals to be decided by the high court.
The high court, in its June 28, 2022 order, had declined to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction, holding that Wani could not be allowed to revive what had become a "dead cause of action" after such a prolonged period.
Wani had claimed his predecessors owned the seven kanals and 18 marlas of land, bearing survey number 525 at Mouza Kangan in Ganderbal district, and sought either restoration of possession or initiation of acquisition proceedings with compensation, or rental compensation for its use since 1953.
The high court had noted that the takeover occurred about 68 years before the petition was filed and that Wani, then around 42, had not explained the delay. It rejected his argument that his father's illiteracy had prevented an earlier approach to the court, observing that Wani himself had reached adulthood more than two decades earlier without seeking legal redress. It also noted that Wani's claim of having approached authorities over the preceding 20 years was unsupported by documents, which he said had been destroyed in the 2014 floods.
The Union Territory administration had opposed the petition as highly belated, arguing that the police department had remained in peaceful possession of the land since 1953 and that producing records after such a long period was difficult. The high court had held that every cause of action must conclude within a reasonable time and should not remain open indefinitely.
(Inputs from PTI)
