The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea filed by Lal Bihari ‘Mritak’, who fought an 18-year-long battle to come ‘alive’ in revenue records, seeking Rs 25 crore compensation from the government for the lost years when he was officially dead’.
The bench also imposed Rs 10,000 fine on the petitioner, an Ig Nobel Awardee by Harvard University, for wasting its time.
Passing the order, a bench of Justice Sangeeta Chandra and Justice Manish Kumar observed, “This court is clearly of the opinion that a mountain out of a molehill has been made by the petitioner only to claim compensation from the State Government for a wrong which was initially caused due to the greed on the part of his relatives.”
“The petitioner has not filed any FIR against his relatives, he has also not arraigned them as parties in this petition or in any other case filed before any Competent Revenue Court to get the revenue entries corrected. No declaration of death of the petitioner was ever made by the State Government while it was his relatives who filed a claim for succession under Section 34 of the UP Land Revenue Code,” the bench added.
Lal Bihari had filed the petition saying that he suffered for 18 years due to his entry as ‘dead’ in the revenue records and hence he should be awarded compensation.
Lal Bihari, a farmer from Azamgarh district, was officially declared ‘dead’ between 1975 and 1994. He fought for 18 years to prove that he is alive.
He added ‘Mritak’ to his name, and founded Mritak Sangh, an association of ‘dead people’, to highlight other cases like his.
