The Delhi High Court has dismissed with costs of Rs 10,000 a petition claiming ownership of territory between the Ganga and Yamuna rivers from Agra to Meerut and other places including 65 revenue estates of Delhi, Gurugram and Uttarakhand, calling it completely misconceived and waste of judicial time.
“The present writ petition is nothing but an abuse of the process of law and complete waste of judicial time. In view of the above, this court is inclined to dismiss the writ petition by imposing costs of Rs 10,000 on the petitioner. Let the costs be deposited by the petitioner with the Armed Forces Battle Casualties Welfare Fund within a period of four weeks from today,” Justice Subramonium Prasad said in an order which was passed on Monday and made available on the court’s website on Tuesday.
Petitioner Kunwar Mahender Dhwaj Prasad Singh claimed that the land of the erstwhile United Province of Agra between the rivers Yamuna and Ganga from Agra to Meerut, Aligarh, Bulandshahar, 65 revenue states of Delhi, including Gurgaon and Uttarakhand comes under the Princely State of Beswan family. It said the land belongs to the petitioner’s family since there was no accession agreement signed between his forefathers and the Government of India.
The high court dismissed his petition seeking a direction to the central government to adopt the process of merger, accession or enter into a treaty with him for his claimed territory and pay the compensation that’s due to him.
Singh, who claimed to be a successor and heir of the Beswan family, also sought a direction to the Centre to not conduct elections for the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies within the territories claimed by him, without following the due process of law for merger.
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The high court said, “The claims raised by the petitioner in the present writ petition cannot be gone into or adjudicated in a writ petition. The petitioner has only filed some maps, historical accounts, which in the opinion of this court do not indicate any existence of the Beswan family or existence of any right of the petitioner. The judgments, extracts from wikipedia report, documents of political integration of India, instrument of accession also do not substantiate the case of the petitioner.”
It said writ courts cannot enter into a field of investigation which is more appropriate for the civil court in a properly contested suit.
Questions of fact which require determination, where rival claims of the parties have to be decided, which are purely factual, can be adjudicated in a properly instituted suit and the proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution is not the proper remedy, the court said.
Article 226 empowers high courts to issue writ or orders to any person or authority across territories under its jurisdiction.
