VINODBHAI PUNJABHAI SHAH Vs. M V VAIDYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS many as 14 persons are before this Court, of whom petitioner no.4 is substituted by one Shri Dineshkumar Vithalbhai Patel, and similarly, petitioner no.11, named, Rameshbhai Laxmanbhai Rajwadi is substituted by Ms.Pushpaben Yogeshbhai Parmar claiming to be purchaser of the construction situated on the land bearing Survey No.574/2, corresponding to Final Plot No.74, by registered sale deed somewhere in the year 1996, to be precise 27.03.1996. The real difficulty is that law breakers get premium in the form of repeated opportunities to get illegal deeds regularized on payment of some nominal fee or charge. These petitioners, according to them, when they purchased the property were in know of the fact that, the Collector had granted permission for Non -Agricultural Use (hereinafter referred to as NA Permission ) for the land in question by order dated 18.01.1989 . But interestingly, these petitioners claim that they did not know that, the Collector has cancelled that NA Permission by order dated 09.10.1991 . This Court refuses to believe the case pleaded by the petitioners. The Court is, therefore, of the opinion that, the petitioners cannot be said to be bona fide purchasers of the property . The Court therefore, refuses to grant any indulgence to the petitioners. The petitioners plea that they are bona fide purchasers and that they relied upon the NA permission granted by the Collector, Kheda by order dated 18.01.1989 and development permission granted by Anand Area Development Authority in the year 1982 is found unacceptable. If the petitioners knew about the order granting NA Permission dated 18.01.1989 this Court has all the reasons to believe that they must have known about the order dated 19.01.1994, whereby NA Permission was withdrawn.

(2.) THIS Court is also of the opinion that if the case of the petitioners is that they are duped either by developers of the land or by the original owners of the land, remedy is to file a suit for damages against those persons in accordance with law. At the request of learned AGP Mr.Harsheel Shukla it is clarified that this observation itself does not confer any right on the petitioners and this observation cannot be placed before the Court concerned at the time of filing of suit for seeking condonation of delay in filing the suit.

(3.) THE learned advocate for the petitioners vehemently submitted that the fact that development permission was granted by the authorities under section 29 of the Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976, and in view of the provision contained in section 117(a) of the said Act, no other permission was required to be obtained either by original owner of land or by the developer of the land. In this regard the learned advocate relied upon the following decisions: