1960, 1974 Tribal-Land Sales: Chhattisgarh HC Rejects Buyers’ Challenge, Says Urban-Nazul Status Alone Does Not Defeat Transfer Restrictions

The dispute concerned 0.17 acres of land in Kondagaon, within municipal limits and claimed by the petitioners to be Nazul land.

Respondent No. 4 sought restoration under Section 170-B of the Chhattisgarh Land Revenue Code, 1959, alleging that the petitioners’ predecessors had unlawfully occupied tribal land.

The petitioners relied on registered sale deeds dated 23 January 1960 and 3 December 1974 and argued that the land was non-agricultural, the proceedings were brought after undue delay, and a necessary party had not been joined.

The SDO rejected the application; the Collector set that order aside, and the Commissioner affirmed the Collector’s decision.

The petitioners’ revision before the Board of Revenue was returned as not maintainable.

Section 165(6) of the Code restricts transfers by a bhumiswami belonging to a notified aboriginal tribe to a person outside that tribe, subject to the statutory requirements for the relevant area; the provision does not expressly exclude land merely because it lies within municipal limits.

Section 170-B concerns possession of agricultural land belonging to a member of a notified aboriginal tribe and provides for reversion in the circumstances prescribed by that section.

The Court also applied the principle, reflected in Shakuntala v. State of Karnataka and the cited decisions Nekkanti Rama Lakshmi, Vivek M. Hinduja, Ningappa and Shivanna, that statutory powers must be exercised within a reasonable time even where no limitation period is specified; reasonableness depends on the statutory scheme and circumstances.

Registration of a sale deed does not itself establish compliance with mandatory statutory restrictions.

The Court held that municipal location or Nazul classification alone did not establish that Section 165(6) was inapplicable: the provision contains no express urban-land exclusion, and the revenue authorities had relied on the Board of Revenue’s 2015 clarification concerning Nazul, municipal and diverted land.

It distinguished the requirements of Section 170-B from those of Section 165(6), but found no sufficient basis in the writ proceedings to disturb the revenue authorities’ orders.

Although the transactions predated the 2016 application by several decades, the Court considered that delay had to be assessed in the context of Section 170-B and concluded that the petitioners had not established grounds warranting writ interference.

It likewise found that the asserted non-joinder did not, by itself, invalidate the orders; nor did registration of the deeds or the transferor’s failure to challenge them establish compliance with the statutory restrictions.

It dismissed the writ petition, leaving the impugned revenue orders undisturbed.