The Supreme Court ended a land dispute that lasted 70 years and spanned four generations by upholding a registered 1957 sale deed. The Court ruled that minor discrepancies cannot invalidate a sale deed unless there are allegations of fraud or forgery.
The Supreme Court has finally settled a land dispute that stretched across roughly seven decades.
A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N. V. Anjaria upheld a sale deed executed on June 4, 1957, thereby ending litigation that involved four generations of the same family.
The dispute concerned 15.5 bighas of land in Narsipur Kalan village in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district. The land had been purchased by the appellant Sarafat Ali’s predecessors through the 1957 sale deed, when the purchasers were still minors.
The controversy began with a registered sale deed executed in 1957 for more than 15 bighas of land. The appellants claimed that they and their predecessors remained in possession ever since. They obtained mutation of the land in their favour in 1984 after one of the sellers withdrew his objection.
ALSO READ: ‘Agreement to Sell’ Doesn’t Give Property Ownership Rights: Himachal Pradesh High Court
During consolidation proceedings in 1991, the appellants sought recognition of their rights as bhumidhar. Although the Consolidation Officer initially allowed the claim and a compromise in 1993 also supported the appellants’ possession the issue was reopened after objections were raised by other co-tenure holders.
After a full hearing, the Consolidation Officer rejected the appellants’ claim in 1999. The key reasons were that the sale deed had not been properly proved and was void under Section 154 of the UP Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act.
These findings were upheld by the appellate and revisional authorities, and the High Court dismissed the appellants’ writ petition in 2017, affirming the same conclusions.
The Supreme Court found that the concurrent findings of the lower courts were based on two main grounds:
- The sale deed was treated as void for allegedly violating Section 154 of the Abolition Act.
- The execution of the deed was held not to be proved because, in the attesting witness Baru’s 1995 statement, his address was described as “Nasirpur Kalan,” whereas the certified copy of the sale deed described him as a resident of “Nihandpur Suthari.”
The Supreme Court ruled that the High Court and consolidation authorities committed a manifest error by treating the June 4, 1957 sale deed as void and disregarding it over what the court considered immaterial discrepancies in proof.
The court noted that there was no allegation of forgery, coercion, impersonation, or fraud of the kind that would make the instrument void from the outset.
The court held,
“The challenge was not founded upon any allegation that the executants were deceived as to the character of the document, nor that the transaction suffered from fraud of such nature as would render the instrument void ab initio. At the highest, the objections raised pertained only to peripheral discrepancies in proof. Such circumstances, by no stretch, could justify disregarding a registered conveyance carrying a presumption of validity in law,”
The court also observed that the appellants had consistently claimed possession based on the sale deed, and that this position was not effectively rebutted by the respondents.
The court observed,
“The cumulative effect of the registered sale deed, the presumption attaching thereto, the absence of any substantive challenge alleging forgery or fraud, and the failure of the respondents to elicit any material contradiction in the testimony of the attesting witness, clearly render the findings recorded by the Consolidation Authorities and affirmed by the High Court unsustainable in law,”
While setting aside the concurrent findings of the trial court and the High Court, the Supreme Court remarked,
“What initially commenced as proceedings for mutation gradually traversed into the realm of the UP Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, and the consolidation framework, though its odyssey across multiple forums only culminated in futility, with the authorities below concurrently holding that the appellants had failed to prove the execution of the said sale deed, thereby compelling them to seek refuge before this court.”
However, objections by other co-tenure holders led to the matter being reopened, and in 1999 the claim was rejected on the grounds that the sale deed was not properly proved and was void under Section 154. The appellate authorities, the revisional authority, and the High Court in 2017 upheld this outcome, leaving the family to approach the Supreme Court.