Karnataka HC: Heirs cannot use PTCL Act to undo a grantee’s voluntary land sale after a nearly eight-year delay

The land was granted in 1962. In 2003, the original grantee sold 20 guntas by registered sale deed.

Respondent No. 5, claiming to be the grantee’s legal heir, initiated resumption proceedings in 2011. The Assistant Commissioner allowed the claim, and the Deputy Commissioner affirmed that decision.

The purchaser challenged both orders by writ petition.

The authorities had found a violation of the PTCL Act because prior permission for alienation had not been obtained.

1. Whether the resumption orders could stand where the original grantee had voluntarily executed a registered sale deed and the claimed heir initiated proceedings after a delay of seven years and eleven months.

2. Whether the petitioner was entitled to have the impugned orders quashed and her name restored in the revenue records.

The Court applied the PTCL Act’s protective purpose of preventing exploitation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe grantees through unauthorised alienation of granted lands.

It stated that a grantee or the grantee’s heirs cannot rely on the Act to repudiate a voluntary transaction executed by the grantee, and that estoppel may operate against such a challenge.

The Court also stated that laches is a primary consideration in resumption proceedings and that restoration action brought after significant delay may be barred by laches.

No specific statutory provision or named precedent was identified in the order.

The Court treated the 2003 registered sale by the original grantee as a voluntary transaction that had created third-party rights.

It held that the claimed heir’s application, brought seven years and eleven months later, could not defeat the purchaser’s accrued rights merely by invoking the PTCL Act.

In the Court’s view, the Act’s protective purpose did not permit the grantee’s family to repudiate the grantee’s own sale, and the authorities had failed to account for the delay and the effect of the transaction.

The Court therefore found the resumption orders legally unsustainable.

It directed the concerned authority to restore the petitioner’s name in the revenue records for the subject land.