Reliance gets relief from Supreme Court in 3-decade-old land dispute with BPCL

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the trial proceedings in a three-decade-old land dispute between Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) pending before the Additional Senior Civil Judge in Gujarat's Jamnagar [Reliance Industries Limited Vs Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited].

A Bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B Varale granted interim relief to RIL while hearing its appeal challenging a May 9 judgment of the Gujarat High Court which had allowed BPCL to amend its plaint to seek declaration of title, recovery of possession and mesne profits in respect of land at Moti Khavdi in Jamnagar.

The dispute between BPCL and RIL has its roots in the early 1990s when the Government of Gujarat allotted and acquired over 349 hectares of land at Moti Khavdi for BPCL to establish a crude oil terminal station.

The allotment was made partly through government orders in December 1994 and partly through compulsory acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, culminating in consent and regular awards during 1994–1996.

BPCL’s case is that portions of this land, meant for its terminal, were encroached upon by Reliance Petroleum Ltd. (RPL), the predecessor of RIL, which allegedly extended a boundary wall into BPCL’s allotted land.

BPCL instituted a civil suit in November 1995 before the Additional Senior Civil Judge at Jamnagar, seeking a permanent injunction restraining Reliance from interfering with its possession or raising construction.

Interim proceedings saw a commissioner appointed to survey the land but the survey could not be completed.

Around the same time, the parties recorded minutes of a meeting in December 1995 wherein RPL acknowledged BPCL’s ownership and agreed not to enter the land without BPCL’s written consent.

Yet the main suit continued, with no written statement filed by Reliance for years. Issues were framed only in 2012, nearly seventeen years after the institution of the case.

In 2013, BPCL sought to amend its plaint to include a prayer for removal of constructions raised by Reliance on the disputed land. That amendment was allowed in 2014 after which Reliance filed its written statement in 2015.

The State government’s resurvey of land prompted BPCL to file another amendment in 2017 to incorporate new survey numbers, which was also allowed.

Meanwhile, Reliance moved the trial court in 2022 seeking dismissal of the plaint for want of proper court fee. The trial court instead directed BPCL to pay ad valorem fee, treating the reliefs as involving possession of immovable property.

A major development occurred in September 2023, when the trial court appointed the District Inspector of Land Records (DILR) to survey the land, after Reliance had secured over 60 adjournments on the issue across decades.

In January 2024, the DILR informed the court that mapping could not be done without satellite imagery and recommended that BISAG-N, the State’s remote sensing agency, be engaged.

BISAG-N submitted its satellite survey in March 2024, suggesting that Reliance had indeed occupied portions of BPCL’s land.

Armed with this survey, BPCL filed a fresh amendment application in June 2024 to seek a formal declaration of title over the land, recovery of possession of the encroached portion, and mesne profits for its alleged unauthorised use. The trial court partly rejected this application in August 2024, allowing only correction of the defendant’s name from RPL to RIL.

BPCL challenged this refusal before the Gujarat High Court under Article 227 of the Constitution.

On May 9, 2025, Justice Maulik J Shelat allowed the petition, holding that the trial court had wrongly applied the proviso to Order VI Rule 17 of the Civil Procedure Code, introduced in 2002.

The High Court held that since the suit was filed in 1995, the unamended provision applied, which allowed amendments at any stage.

It concluded that the new prayers were clarificatory and consequential in nature and that limitation was a mixed question of law and fact to be decided at trial.

However, the court balanced equities by directing that the new reliefs would not relate back to 1995 but would take effect only from the date of the amendment application, i.e. June 13, 2024.

This led to the present appeal by Reliance before the Supreme Court.

On September 16, the Court issued notice on Reliance’s petition and stayed further proceedings in the Jamnagar suit. With this order, the three-decade-old litigation has been frozen once again, pending final adjudication before the apex court.

RIL was represented by Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Shyam Divan and Mihir Joshi along with advocates Keyur Gandhi, Kunal Vyas, Himanshu Satija, Harshit Khanduja, Harsh Saxena, Anshul Rao and Aadit, instructed by advocate Neha Mehta Satija.

BPCL was represented by Senior Advocate Balbir Singh with advocates Divyam Dhyani, Deepak Joshi, Dr. Sanjay Sharma, Naman Tandon and Reshmi Rea Sinha and Parijat Sinha.

[Read Order]