In a significant ruling earlier this month, the Karnataka High Court dismissed a long-standing appeal concerning a land acquisition case dating back to 1978, concluding that the petitioner’s “right to relief is lost” due to the extensive delay.
The case, which has lingered in the judicial system for 44 years, came to a close when a bench led by Chief Justice N V Anjaria and Justice K V Aravind rejected the petitioner’s plea for relief under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution. The appeal, a challenge against a single judge’s order issued in January this year, was dismissed due to the petitioner’s inability to justify the decades-long delay in seeking justice.
In 1978, two land acquisition cases were initiated, but it wasn’t until the last week of December 2018 that the petitioner became aware of the non-payment of compensation, according to the court documents. The court highlighted a subsequent three-year delay even after the petitioner gained knowledge of the issue in 2018.
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Chief Justice Anjaria, in his ruling, emphasized the impracticality of maintaining legal action over such an extended period. “Forty-four years is too long a time to maintain legal action,” he stated. “With the passage of such protracted time, the right to relief is lost.”
The bench further noted that Article 226, which grants the High Court the power to issue certain writs, “is not liable to be exercised to entertain the stale and a virtually dead claim.”
