Section 77A grants are confined to undisputed tenanted lands vested in the State.

Byrappa applied under Section 77-A of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961, seeking a grant of 1 acre 4 guntas in Sy. No. 55/1, Yelahanka, claiming cultivation for more than five decades.

The Special Land Acquisition Officer allowed the application on 18 December 2006. The Karnataka Appellate Tribunal set that order aside in appeals brought by private respondents.

Byrappa’s legal representatives and the other petitioners sought judicial review and restoration of the grant.

Byrappa had also brought a civil suit claiming title by adverse possession; that suit was dismissed.

Whether the petitioners established the statutory requirements for a grant under Section 77-A of the Act.

Whether the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal erred in setting aside the Special Land Acquisition Officer’s grant.

Section 77-A of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961, provides a limited route to grant land to a person who, having been entitled to registration as an occupant under Section 45 or 49, failed to apply within the prescribed period but remained in actual possession and cultivation at the relevant times, subject to the statutory ceiling.

Under the Full Bench decision in Lokayya Poojary and Another v. State of Karnataka and Others, ILR 2012 KAR 4345, the authority’s inquiry under Section 77-A is confined to the statutory conditions; the land must be vested in the State under Section 44, and that vesting must be established through official records.

Where the status of the land as vested land is disputed, Section 77-A does not provide a forum to determine whether the land was tenanted.

The Court also considered the Full Bench’s distinction between an application for occupancy rights under Section 45 and a grant under Section 77-A.

The Court held that the petitioners’ claim had to satisfy Section 77-A’s limited requirements, rather than merely establish long possession.

The record also showed that Byrappa had asserted adverse possession in his civil suit, which was dismissed; the Court considered that position inconsistent with the claim that his entitlement arose from tenancy.

Applying Lokayya Poojary, the Court concluded that the Special Land Acquisition Officer had granted the land without properly addressing the statutory requirements, while the Tribunal had rightly interfered.

The Court found no perversity in the Tribunal’s order.

It confirmed the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal’s order dated 23 December 2015 and set aside the Special Land Acquisition Officer’s grant dated 18 December 2006.