Delhi High Court Today (March 14th) Fined Kunwar Mahender Dhwaj Prasad Singh Rs 1 Lakh for Petition on Land Ownership in Agra, Meerut, Aligarh, and Other Areas between Ganga and Yamuna.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Today ruled against Kunwar Mahender Dhwaj Prasad Singh, levying a substantial fine of Rs 1 lakh against him. Singh had initiated legal proceedings claiming ownership over extensive lands currently part of Agra, Meerut, Aligarh, and 65 revenue estates spanning Delhi, Gurgaon, and Uttarakhand.
The bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, found Singh’s petition to be significantly delayed, lacking merit due to the doctrine of laches and the principle of extinguishment, as he filed the claim more than seventy years post-India’s independence.
The court expressed skepticism about Singh’s claim, questioning the legitimacy and timing of his ownership claim over the expansive territories situated between the Yamuna and Ganga rivers. The bench pointedly remarked,
“You say you own the entire area between Yamuna and Ganga. On what basis you’re coming? After 75 years you have woken up…The grievance arose in 1947. Isn’t it too late in the day to contest this? We are in 2024 now. Many years have gone by. Whether you’re the raja or not, we don’t know. You cannot complain today that you’ve been deprived in 1947,”
-highlighting the significant delay and questioning the base of his entitlement.
Further complicating Singh’s position, the court noted that his claims were essentially factual matters inappropriate for writ proceedings, as they pointed out,
“How do we know you’re the owner? We don’t have the paper,”
-indicating a lack of concrete evidence to substantiate his ownership.
This was not Singh’s first encounter with legal costs regarding this matter; a single judge of the High Court had previously imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on him. His current appeal was against the decision of this earlier judgment.
Singh had approached the court asserting his lineage to the Beswan Avibhajya Rajya, arguing that it had never been incorporated into the Indian Union. He maintained that his family continued to enjoy the status of a Princely State and insisted that the territories historically owned by them were never officially relinquished to the Indian government. Singh’s demands were extensive, including official recognition and integration of his territories into India, compensation for land revenues collected since 1950, and a suspension of electoral processes within these territories until formal merger proceedings were completed.
However, the court, referencing Justice Subramonium Prasad‘s earlier judgment, dismissed Singh’s petition as baseless. Justice Prasad had noted that Singh’s submission, comprising merely maps and articles, failed to establish the existence of the Beswan family or Singh’s legitimate succession to the princely state, stating,
“The Court had held that the petition was completely misconceived, an abuse of process of law and a complete waste of judicial time.”
This judgment underscores the challenges in litigating historical ownership claims, especially when such claims lack timely initiation and substantial evidence.
Click Here to Read Previous Reports of Delhi High Court
FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES
