STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. PUSHPABEN V BHATIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The first group of 11 appeals filed by the State of Gujarat and its officers is directed against common judgment and order dated 21. 12. 2005 of the learned Single Judge allowing the petitions which were filed by the respondents herein. Letters Patent Appeal No. 658 of 2008 is directed against the subsequent judgment dated 19. 12. 2006 of another learned Single Judge following the aforesaid decision dated 21. 12. 2005. Since all the appeals raise common questions of law and facts, they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) THE broad facts are not in dispute. In the year 1968, Vijapur Municipality issued a public notice for auctioning 36 plots in City Survey No. 3252 within the limits of Vijapur Municipality. The plots were leased out to the highest bidders. These plot holders put up construction of shops on the respective plots with prior permission of the Municipality. The original allottees or their sub-tenants have been carrying on business in the said shops for last about 40 years. After the sub-plots were so auctioned in the year 1968, for the first time in the year 1999, the State Government issued a show cause notice calling upon the occupants of the shops to remove the construction and to hand over the possession of the plots to the State Government. The show cause notices dated 2. 2. 1999 indicated that the land bearing Survey No. 3252 in Vijapur town belonged to the State Government and that the construction encroached upon public roads. The said show cause notices came to be challenged before the learned Single Judge.

(3.) ON behalf of the State Government, affidavit-in-reply was filed contending that the land bearing Survey No. 3252 is a Government land and the same is a reserved plot and the petitioners had encroached upon the same by constructing the shops. However, in the said affidavit-in-reply, there was no contention about alleged encroachment on any public road. The focus in the affidavit-in-reply as well as in the oral submissions made on behalf of the Government was that the Municipality acted illegally in giving lease hold rights to the petitioners when the land actually belonged to the Government.