DIVYAGNAKUMARI HARISINH PARMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The captioned appeals arise from a common judgment dated 11, 15, 16, 17/2/2005 (Impugned Judgment) delivered by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay (High Court) in several Second Appeals, in an issue pertaining to the recission of land grants relating to properties situated in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Dadra and Nagar Haveli). The said properties were parcels of land originally vested in the erstwhile Portuguese Government and were granted to the Appellants' predecessors-intitle between 1923 and 1930, subject to certain conditions for agricultural cultivation. These grants were subsequently rescinded by the Collector, Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Collector), vide an order dtd. 30/4/1974, thereby setting in motion a protracted legal wrangle between the State and the Appellants that has spanned several decades.

(2.) What is perhaps most striking about the instant case is not merely that this Court is called upon to adjudicate a dispute originating over half a century ago, rather, it is the deeper irony that, even after seventy-eight years of independence, this Court remains engaged in resolving a controversy arising out of land rights conferred by colonial powers that once exploited this nation's wealth and resources. Any critique or disquiet this Bench may express regarding the colonial legacy must nevertheless not be construed as a reflection on the legitimacy of the Appellants' claims or the rights they seek to assert.

(3.) Given that the Appellants' land rights were conferred under the erstwhile Portuguese legal regime, the matter necessitates a nuanced understanding of the scope and import of those legal provisions as they existed a century ago, examined through the lens of Indian legal principles and established jurisprudence.