B GURUSHANTHAIAH HOLLALKERE TALUK Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Government lands are public properties in our country and therefore any one can go and occupy it and assert right over it, though the occupation is unauthorized, irregular, illegal and against law as pointed out by Sri R. Omkumar, learned AGA. Nevertheless such illegal acts command a premium, as such persons are enabled by law in terms of the provisions of Section 94(A) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 and it has become the practice of the day, for violators of law to grab any open vacant government land and to assert rights over it!

(2.) The practice of granting government lands particularly, non-alienated land, which was prevalent during the British rule, for the purpose of bringing such lands within the purview of assessment and to generate revenue to the State, even at the cost of annihilation of pristine, virgin, unique forests and biospheres and has continued unabated even after independence.

(3.) What with the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, the present statutory provisions which regulates the grant of lands, having remained very static as had prevailed earlier, under which a collector / Deputy Commissioner / his subordinates / sub-collector / Asst. Commissioner or even a Tahsildar had the power to grant lands left and right and such actions were encouraged by Government as it was productive for the State, a foreign power who had colonized our country here, for sustaining themselves as perpetrators of their tyrannic rule though, the initial entry was to make profits out of trade with us, but later, annexed the State itself continued the object of making profits even by a rule rather misrule and governance of our country to their convenience and benefit.