The Patna High Court imposed a cost of Rs.10,000/- on the Petitioner and dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed praying for removing all types of ban from the land in question situated at Village Budhaul Halka Gonawa Anchal Nawada near by Nawada town which is wrongly recorded as Anawad Sarv Sadharan (Bihar Sarkar).
The land is said to be one belonging to one lady, who filed a title suit against the Government, which was decreed. An appeal filed by the State was also dismissed and based on the decree a Jamabandi was created in the name of the lady and accordingly the rent is also paid by the person regularly. Four acres of the land obtained were sold to more than fifty purchasers who are unable to get the land mutated in their names since it is recorded in Anabad Sarv Sadharan. It is also claimed that there is illegal encroachment of government land by anti-social elements.
“The contentions are mutually destructive. If the lands belong to individual persons, then it cannot be said to be Government land. If there are encroachments on private property, then it is for such individuals to approach the appropriate authority to remove the encroachment. Further, even a denial of mutation, as pleaded in the writ petition, would have to be agitated by the individual who claims title over the property by reason of a purchase made from the title holder.”
The Division Bench of Chief Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Rajiv Roy found the petition to have been filed without any responsibility. Despite the petitioner having claimed illegal encroachment by land mafia and also asserted an F.I.R. having been registered, the persons who are alleged to have carried out the encroachment are not impleaded. The petition is a clear abuse of process of law and it is a publicity induced litigation and not a Public Interest Litigation , held by the High Court .
“We dismiss the writ petition with cost of Rs. 10,000/- imposed on the petitioner which shall be paid to the Bihar State Legal Services Authority. If the same is not paid within one month, it shall be recovered by the Bihar State Legal Services Authority by resorting to revenue recovery proceedings as is permissible for recovery of arrears due on land”, the order reads.