Karnataka HC Quashes Land Resumption Orders Over 28-Year Delay, Directs Petitioner’s Name Restored In Revenue Records

The subject land was granted in 1959–60 and alienated by a registered sale deed in 1994.

Resumption proceedings were initiated before the Assistant Commissioner in 2022, who ordered resumption. The Deputy Commissioner dismissed the appeal and affirmed that order. The petitioner challenged both orders, including on the ground that the proceedings were initiated after an unreasonable and unexplained delay of nearly 28 years from the sale deed.

The judgment arose from proceedings concerning resumption of granted land under the PTCL framework, but it does not identify a specific statutory provision.

It applies the principle that delay and laches are material considerations in resumption proceedings and states that laches should be treated as a primary requirement when land is resumed; restoration action brought after significant delay may be barred by laches.

The Court attributes this proposition to a Division Bench, but does not identify that decision in the text.

The Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner ordered resumption without examining whether proceedings initiated nearly 28 years after the 1994 registered sale deed could be entertained.

Because the delay and the petitioner’s specific contention that it was unreasonable and unexplained were material to the question of laches, the authorities’ failure to consider them rendered their orders unsustainable.

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