‘Absolute lack of commitment and empathy’: Telangana High Court slams officer for sitting on evacuee property application for 25 years

The Division Bench of Justices Moushumi Bhattacharya and Gadi Praveen Kumar on Wednesday held that the Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act, 1951, was enacted for settling the property claims of people who had been displaced during the strife and unrest. The object of the Act, the Bench emphasised, was to make special provisions for the separation of the interest of evacuees from those of other persons in property where there may be a conflict of claims.

‘Blatant omission’ of 4 survey numbers

The dispute originates from land parcels in Jangaon district, initially owned by Nooruddin Hasan and Saifuddin Khalid who had migrated to Pakistan, that were classified under Evacuee Properties. The sister of the original owners, Saleha Fatima Begum, who remained in India, acquired some of these properties through a sale certificate in 1962. After she died in 1987, her legal heirs discovered a “blatant omission” as four specific survey numbers were not included in the 1962 certificate.

Following a series of legal actions between 1989 and 2000, including challenges by third parties, the division bench of the High Court in 2000 directed the legal heirs to file an application before the competent officer. Subsequently, the heirs filed an application seeking the sale certificate for the subject properties, which has remained undecided for over 25 years, leading to the current writ petition.

“By sitting over the respondent number one/writ petitioner’s application for 25 years, the appellant has not only frustrated the object of the Act but also deprived two generations of the claimed owners of the lands in question and forced them to litigate before the courts,” the Division Bench of Bhattacharya and Kumar said on Wednesday.

It further held that the competent officer “simply does not have any defense to his inaction in hearing the application.” The appellant’s challenge of the single judge’s order “would reinforce the appellant’s absolute lack of commitment and empathy.”

The division bench said that the shock expressed by the single judge and the imposition of Rs 50,000 as costs are fully justified. “It is truly startling that the respondent number one/writ petitioner’s application has been kept pending for 25 years and the appellant now seeks to disown his responsibility under the cover of repeal under the 2005 Act,” it added.

The division bench held that the writ appeal was “completely misconceived, meritless and tainted with malafides in misleading the court” and hence found no reason to interfere with the costs imposed by the single judge in June. “The injury caused to respondent number one by reason of the inaction of the appellant cannot be measured in monetary terms,” it said. The division bench also directed the competent officer to pay the cost to the Sainik Welfare Telangana Armed Forces Flag Day Fund within two weeks from the date of the order.