Karnataka HC Quashes Order Letting Landowners Retain 423 Acres As ‘Kharab’, Orders Fresh Inquiry Into Cultivability And Regularisation Applications

Respondents 6–13 held lands at Hulakoppa measuring, in total, 590 acres 18 guntas. In 1976, that extent was treated as excess and resumed to the State under Section 68 of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961.

Following two earlier remands, the Land Tribunal passed the impugned order on 24 April 1998, treating 166 acres 19 guntas as cultivable excess land and the remaining 423 acres 39 guntas as uncultivable kharab land to be retained by the landowners.

The Tribunal’s inspection material referred to persons cultivating portions of the land, but its members disagreed about the extent to be treated as excess: the Chairman identified 292 acres 19 guntas, while the other members identified 166 acres 19 guntas.

The petitioners, who claimed to be landless cultivators in possession of portions of the land, challenged the Tribunal’s order and sought consideration of their applications for regularisation.

The Court considered the petitions together.

The Court directed that the matter be reconsidered in accordance with the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 and the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, including as to the treatment of kharab land.

It applied the procedural principle that an administrative determination affecting land classification and competing claims must rest on an adequate enquiry and a reasoned assessment of the relevant facts; where the record does not establish the land’s nature or extent, the matter requires fresh determination by the competent authority.

No precedent was cited.

The Tribunal’s order did not show that a proper enquiry had been conducted into the land’s cultivability, and it gave no adequate basis for the materially different conclusions reached by the Chairman and the other members.

Nor did it identify with sufficient specificity who occupied the land and to what extent.

Because the record was insufficient to determine the cultivable, uncultivable, and kharab areas, and because cultivators claimed possession and regularisation while the landowners disputed that the land was excess, the Court held that fresh enquiry was necessary.

It remitted the matters to the Assistant Commissioner to conduct a fresh enquiry, inspect the land, determine its cultivable, uncultivable, and kharab extents, and act in accordance with the two statutes.

The petitioners’ regularisation applications and respondents 6–13’s claims were also to be considered after hearing the parties, with orders to be passed within the specified six-month period.

The existing interim order was extended pending disposal of the remitted proceedings.