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The Supreme Court, which impeccably champions litigants’ right to speedy justice, on Tuesday kept alive a nearly 60-year-old land dispute by ordering fresh adjudication of the case by the Allahabad High Court, which had in 2006 decided in favour of the Uttar Pradesh Govt after labouring on it for 31 years.
Though the Constitutional Courts often lecture the trial courts on the cardinality of speedy justice & term it as a fundamental right of the litigants, this case surprisingly remained pending in the High Court & the Supreme Court for 31 years & 16 years, respectively.
In comparison, the trial courts were swift in rendering their decision on the suit that was instituted in 1964 by the UP government for resumption of approximately 12 acres of land, which was claimed to be a rent-free endowment given to one of the widows — Farooqi Begum — of the erstwhile nawab of Rampur, Hamid Ali Khan, in 1924. The nawab died in 1930 & his successor resumed the land & later the UP government took it over.
The trial court decreed the suit in favour of the UP government in 1966, within two years of the institution of the suit. When an appeal was filed in the HC, it was sent back to the district judge, which registered the appeal in 1967 & four years later, remanded the suit for fresh adjudication by the trial court. In 1973, the trial court again decreed the suit in favour of the government.
Farooqi Begum appealed against the trial court decision before the district judge, who in 1975 upheld the decree under challenge. She filed an appeal before the Allahabad HC, which took 31 years to decide the civil suit in favour of the government. She expired during the pendency of litigation & her legal heirs pursued the case.
The appeal against the HC order was decided by an SC bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Vikram Nath on Tuesday, after a gap of 16 years, but only to give a new lease of life to the six-decade-old litigation by relegating it back to the HC for fresh adjudication. Writing the 27-page judgment, Justice Nath said, “We are of the view that the HC fell in error inrelying upon inadmissible evidence. ”
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