Trickery of the highest order: Karnataka High Court rejects man's claim to ownership of IAF land in Yelahanka

The Karnataka High Court recently ruled in favour of the Defence Ministry in a dispute over the ownership of land at Bengaluru's Sonnappanahalli, which is being used as an aircraft taxi track by the Indian Air Force's (IAF) Yelahanka Air Force Station [Union of India v. Mohsin Sharieff].

A Division Bench of Justice D K Singh and Justice H Shanthi Bhushan on September 28 allowed the Union government's appeal against a single-judge ruling in the matter.

The earlier single judge ruling had favoured a private claimant who alleged that he was the rightful owner of the disputed land. While overturning this judgment, the Division Bench criticised the "trickery" apparently resorted to by the private claimant to usurp the Defence Department's title to the disputed land.

“The taxi track of the Indian Air Force has been subjected to trickery of the highest order... after several decades, an attempt has been made to create a private title over the very same land and to assert rights against the Defence authorities. However, such an attempt has not escaped the scrutiny of this Court," it said.

The Court also commented on the importance of the Indian Air Force.

"Strategic Air Defence is indispensable for a secured nation ... The Indian Air Force is a vital component of the nation's defence infrastructure, entrusted with safeguarding the country's airspace and protecting its strategic interests and national security," the Court said.

The dispute arose from one Mohsin Sharieff's claim over land in Survey Nos. 32 and 33, based on an agreement of sale executed in 1995 with the heirs of the land's original owner.

Sharieff subsequently instituted a specific performance suit in 2008. The civil court decreed the suit in his favour, following which a Court Commissioner executed a sale deed in his favour in January 2015.

The Defence Department, however, maintained that Survey No. 33 had already been acquired in 1943 for Defence purposes and that compensation had been paid to the original owner.

The dispute eventually reached the High Court.

A single-judge Bench of the Court ruled that the disputed land in Survey No. 33 at Sonnappanahalli was outside the 1943 land acquisition, since the gazette notification did not mention that survey number.

The single-judge ruling, therefore, set aside the orders of revenue authorities that had entered the Defence Ministry's name in revenue records concerning the land.

The single-judge also directed the Tahsildar to enter the name of Mohsin Sharieff in the records within one month. The Central government challenged this ruling before the Division Bench of the High Court.

By its September 28 ruling, the Bench held that acquisition records, survey report, compensation records, village map and Military Land Register (MLR) established that the disputed land had been acquired for Defence purposes and was subsequently used by the Indian Air Force.

It found that the disputed land was actually part of the 1943 land acquisition, and that it had mistakenly been referred to as “Survey No. 30” in the gazette notification, which was only a typographical error.

It pointed out that subsequent contemporaneous records, including a survey report dated February 26, 1944, identified Survey No.33 and recorded that 3 acres 12 guntas had been utilised for the aircraft taxi track.

The Court further noted that the MLR recorded 3 acres 12 guntas in Survey No.33 as Defence land and that this document, being an official Defence record, constituted conclusive evidence of the Union government's title.

The Court, therefore, rejected a claim made over the said land by Sharieff.

The Court held that the said private claimant could not have acquired any title from the heirs of the land’s original owner, when the owner had already been compensated when the government acquired the land decades earlier.

It further observed that the 1995 agreement of sale was entered into more than five decades after the land had been acquired by the government, while the specific performance suit was filed by Sharieff only in 2008.

The Bench said the sequence of events “shocks the conscience of the Court and calls for closer scrutiny."

It also held that the decree in Sharieff's civil suit, to which the Defence Department was not a party, could not create any title against the Union government.

Accordingly, the High Court set aside the single judge's order and restored orders passed by the Assistant Commissioner in 2022 and the Deputy Commissioner in 2023, thereby confirming the Defence Department's title over the land.

Additional Solicitor General K Arvind Kamath and advocate Ajay Prabhu M appeared for the Union government.

Senior Advocate D R Ravishankar and advocate Somashekar C Angadi appeared for Mohsin Sharieff.

Additional Government Advocate M N Sudev Hegde appeared for the State government.

[Read Judgment]