HC quashes notices to trust to vacate ‘central government’ land

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday struck down eviction notices issued by the salt commissioner to Sir NP Vakil Trust to vacate 240 acres of salt pan land

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday struck down eviction notices issued by the salt commissioner to Sir NP Vakil Trust to vacate 240 acres of salt pan land at Vasai. The commissionerate said the private trust was not authorised to occupy the land as it belonged to the central government.

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The division bench of justices SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi struck down the notices primarily on the ground that the salt commissioner could not have resorted to summary proceedings under public premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, when there is a dispute over the ownership of the land.

“The impugned action is clearly arbitrary and violates the mandate of article 14 [Equality before Law] of the Constitution of India,” said the bench.

“Any departure from the same or bypassing it would violate the mandate of article 14 of the Constitution of India and make a mockery of the principle enshrined therein of equality before the law,” the bench said, while holding that the eviction notices and the proceedings in pursuance the notices were “ex facie without jurisdiction.”

In May 2013, the salt commissionerate had issued eviction notices to the private trust, which ran a salt manufacturing unit, Jahangir Mahal Salt Works, from the government land allotted to it. The trust approached the high court challenging the notices and further eviction proceedings, saying it had been acknowledged as the owner of the land and was in uninterrupted possession since 1887.

The private trust claimed ownership of the property primarily on the ground that for a period of more than 125 years it was recognised as the owner of the lands, and in 1971 the central government itself had initiated process for acquisition of a part of the lands under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 on the basis that the petitioner trust was the owner of lands.

Though the high court struck down the eviction notices and stopped further proceedings, it refused to recognise the trust as owners of the land.

“Our judgment does not hold that the petitioners are owners of the property,” said the judges clarifying that the title to the lands shall be decided uninfluenced by the observations made by them.