HAMBHUNATH SAMAL Vs. TEHILDAR PORT BLAIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The matters in issue in these proceedings have to be kept confined to the petitioner's immediate cause for approaching this Court, in view of the myriad connected litigations pending or said to be pending. The writ petitioner makes himself out to be a David fighting the Goliath of combined strength of State might and a corporate juggernaut.

(2.) The petitioner claims to be entitled to a piece of land measuring about 400 sq.m. having encroached upon government land shortly upon his arrival in these islands some time in the early 1970s. He claims to be entitled to the benefit under a scheme by which pre-1978 encroachers were permitted to enjoy possession of the land as tenants under the Administration. His fervent pleas for the regularization of his occupation of such land under the scheme, he says, have not been addressed or even looked into as the Administration, unmindful of his existence, had allotted a chunk of land, including the area under his occupation, to the fourth respondent to set up a hotel by the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea.

(3.) The fourth respondent, the principle contestant, is part of a corporate behemoth. The hotel has been set up. But the petitioner's humble lodgings remain an eyesore. According to the fourth respondent, the petitioner came upon the land that he now claims as his own after the Administration granted license in respect of the much larger area in favour of the fourth respondent. The fourth respondent claims that the petitioner was engaged as a contractor by the hotelier and encroached upon the land in such capacity. An encroacher as the petitioner could not claim the benefit of the scheme which, in any event, was of limited duration and had run its course, according to the fourth respondent. The hotelier complained that the petitioner, with his litigating resourcefulness, has warded off eviction for more than two decades and the Court ought not to entertain the pretended grievance. The fourth respondent: suggests that the indulgence shown to the petitioner has caused it injustice. The present proceedings, the fourth respondent complains, is the latest in a series of frivolous litigations resorted to by the petitioner and ought to have been nipped in the bud,