1912 land-use conditions unenforceable after repeal of Government Grants Act, Madras High Court rules in 31-acre Madurai dispute

In 1912, the Government assigned 31.10 acres at Tallakulam, Madurai, to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for an industrial home for needy women.

The grant required the land to be used for industrial and charitable purposes and reserved a right of resumption if that purpose ceased.

In 1973, the successor missionary body transferred the land to the Church of South India Trust Association (CSI TA).

The land was thereafter held, developed, and partly transferred to third parties, without Government action to enforce the original conditions.

In 2022, D. Devasahayam obtained a direction requiring the Commissioner of Land Administration to enquire into alleged breach of the grant conditions.

The Commissioner ordered resumption, prompting four writ petitions, which the Single Judge allowed on 09.05.2025.

The State and others appealed; Devasahayam also filed connected appeals and sought leave to appeal in two matters.

1. Whether, following repeal of the Government Grants Act, 1895, the Government could initiate resumption proceedings to enforce conditions in the 1912 grant, where no such proceedings were pending before repeal.

2. Whether prolonged non-enforcement of the grant conditions and official acquiescence in subsequent transfers and development rendered those conditions unenforceable under the doctrine of desuetude.

3. Whether the Commissioner’s resumption order could deprive the respondents of property consistently with Article 300A of the Constitution.

4. Whether the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, governed the original assignment or the conditions attached to it.

The Court relied on the Repealing and Amending (Second) Act, 2017, including its savings provision, and Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, to consider the effect of repeal on accrued rights and pending proceedings; it held that the repeal did not preserve a power to initiate proceedings that were not pending at the time.

Applying Kolhapur Canesugar Works Ltd. v. Union of India, (2000) 2 SCC 536, it stated that repeal ordinarily obliterates the repealed enactment, subject to applicable savings.

It applied the doctrine of desuetude, as discussed in Municipal Corporation for City of Pune v. Bharat Forge Co. Ltd., (1995) 3 SCC 434, and Cantonment Board, MHOW v. M.P. State Road Transport Corporation, (1997) 9 SCC 450: prolonged non-use or non-enforcement, accompanied by a contrary practice, may render a law or condition unenforceable.

The Court also considered Section 12(2) of the Tamil Nadu Board of Revenue Abolition Act, 1980, and Article 300A, which prohibits deprivation of property except by authority of law.

It held that the Transfer of Property Act did not apply to the 1912 assignment, which was made under the Government Grants Act and fell within Section 2(d) of the Transfer of Property Act.

The Government had not initiated resumption proceedings before the Government Grants Act was repealed or before the Board of Revenue was abolished; the Commissioner acted only after the 2022 court direction.

The Court therefore found no pending proceeding preserved by the applicable savings provisions and concluded that the Government could not initiate enforcement after repeal.

It further relied on decades of non-enforcement and official acceptance of transfers, mutations, and building permissions to find that the conditions had become a “dead letter” and that subsequent transactions had been acquiesced in.

In the absence of legal authority to resume the property, the Commissioner’s order could not stand under Article 300A.

The Court disagreed with the Single Judge only insofar as the latter had applied the Transfer of Property Act; it concluded that the Act did not govern the original grant.

It dismissed W.A.(MD) Nos. 2487–2490 and 3288 of 2025 and W.A.(MD) No. 152 of 2026, confirmed the Single Judge’s order allowing the four writ petitions, dismissed the leave applications, and rejected the two appeals at the SR stage.

There was no order as to costs, and connected miscellaneous petitions were closed.