Suppression of material facts disentitles a litigant to relief under Article 226.

The petitioners claimed continuous cultivating possession since 1965 over land measuring 11 Kanals 8 Marlas in Khasra No. 584 and 19 Kanals 14 Marlas in Khasra No. 628 at Village Logate, Kathua, and sought regularisation and conferment of proprietary rights under Government Order No. Reh-371 of 1971, as well as protection from dispossession.

The official respondents asserted that the land was evacuee property vested in the Custodian and that the 1971 Government Order conferred no automatic ownership right.

During the proceedings, the petitioners filed WP(C) No. 3238/2025 challenging Auction Order No. 78 of 2025 dated 3 March 2025 and the consequential lease deed dated 4 March 2025, under which the land was leased to M/s Man Stainless Steel Tubes Ltd.

The respondent-company alleged that the petitioners had received Rs. 9,90,000 each, sworn affidavits acknowledging termination or surrender of their tenancy rights, and consented to transfer of the Custodian land in favour of the company.

The petitioners did not specifically deny receipt of the money or execution of the affidavits.

Whether the petitioners, having allegedly received monetary consideration and surrendered or acknowledged termination of their tenancy rights, were entitled to invoke the discretionary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution without disclosing those facts?

Whether the petitioners were entitled to regularisation or proprietary rights over the subject evacuee land under Government Order No. Reh-371 of 1971 and related agrarian or land-reform provisions?

Whether the auction order and consequential lease deed in favour of the respondent-company were liable to be quashed on the grounds of the petitioners’ alleged possession, absence of notice, and non-compliance with applicable law?

Whether the respondent-company could use the subject agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes without obtaining requisite statutory permission?

The Court applied the statutory framework governing evacuee property, under which such property vests in the Custodian and persons found in possession may be treated as holding it on behalf of the Custodian and liable to surrender possession on demand.

It held that Government Order No. Reh-371 of 1971 was a conditional executive scheme and did not automatically confer ownership or override the governing evacuee-property legislation.

The Court further applied the settled clean-hands doctrine governing equitable and discretionary relief under Article 226: a litigant must make full and candid disclosure of all material facts, and suppression or misrepresentation may justify dismissal at the threshold.

This principle was drawn from K.D. Sharma v. Steel Authority of India Ltd., (2008) 12 SCC 481, and Dalip Singh v. State of U.P., (2010) 2 SCC 114.

The Court also directed compliance with the requirement of obtaining permission from the competent authority before converting agricultural land to non-agricultural use.

The Court found that the alleged receipt of Rs. 9,90,000 by each of two petitioners, together with the affidavits acknowledging termination or surrender of tenancy rights and statements consenting to transfer of the land, directly affected the petitioners’ claims of continuing possession, tenancy, and entitlement to challenge the auction.

Since the petitioners neither denied these facts nor filed a specific supplementary affidavit rebutting them, the Court treated their silence as an admission.

Their failure to disclose these material facts meant that they approached the writ court without clean hands.

Applying K.D. Sharma and Dalip Singh, the Court held that such suppression disentitled them to equitable and discretionary relief, making it unnecessary to adjudicate their substantive claims regarding regularisation, possession, or invalidity of the auction and lease.

Nevertheless, independently of the dismissal, the Court noted that no permission appeared to have been obtained for non-agricultural use of the land and therefore imposed a limited legal-use restriction.

The respondent-company was directed not to use the subject agricultural land for any non-agricultural purpose unless and until it obtained the requisite permission from the competent authority in accordance with law.

CCP(S) No. 366/2025 was disposed of as no notice had been issued and nothing further survived after disposal of the main writ petitions.