New Delhi, August 21:The Supreme Court has sought the response of the Karnataka government to the plea by the State Wakf Board for a direction to return about 100 acres land in Bangalore, on the contention that it was wrongly taken over by the State in 1960.
The Board claimed that it was divested of a total of 602 acres and 29 guntas of land with the enactment of the Mysore (Religious and Charitable) Inams Abolition Act, 1955, meant for abolition of certain inams of specified land holdings. The land in question, which stretched across Bellahalli village in Yelahanka hobli of Bangalore North taluk, was fallaciously vested in the State on January 4, 1960 through a notification under Section 1(4) of the Inams Abolition Act, it said.
Representing the Board, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran submitted before a bench of Justices B S Chauhan and S A Bobde that the land belonged to the Board, but was wrongly vested in the State through the notification. He contended that the property, belonging to the Wakf, could not be classified as inam land. The Bench, however, questioned the Board’s attempt to approach the court 50 years after the State decided to vest the rights over the land upon itself. “By now, the property must have changed hands so many times and the land must have been allotted to a large number of people. You filed your petition in (HC) 2010, while the land was vested in State in 1960,” the bench said.
The court issued notice to the State government on the assurance that the rights of those allotted land legally would not be affected.
