Punjab & Haryana High Court Sets Aside Decrees Declaring Occupancy Tenants as Owners; Holds Revenue Entries Were Manipulated and No Valid Tenancy Ever Came Into Existence

Case Name: Municipal Corporation Faridabad vs. Rajbir alias Dan Singh and Others
Date of Judgment: 03 December 2025
Citation: RSA-2645-1998
Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Deepak Gupta

Held: The Punjab & Haryana High Court reversed concurrent findings of the courts below that had conferred occupancy rights and ownership upon the plaintiffs. The Court held that tenancy had never been legally created, that revenue entries showing the plaintiffs as gair maurusi tenants were manipulated, and that the statutory requirements for acquisition of occupancy rights were completely unmet. It ruled that long-standing possession did not cure foundational defects and could not ripen into ownership.

Summary: The plaintiffs sought a declaration of ownership over 7 kanal 3 marla of land in village Sihi, claiming that their forefathers had been inducted as tenants by the Gram Panchayat and that their decades-long possession on nominal chakota established occupancy rights under the Punjab Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Act, 1953. They relied heavily on revenue entries from 1961 onwards that recorded them as gair maurusi tenants paying fixed rent.

The defendant Municipal Corporation Faridabad, successor to the Faridabad Complex Administration, contested the suit, asserting that the Gram Panchayat never created any tenancy, no resolution ever existed authorising induction of the plaintiffs’ father Jagmal Singh, and no rent receipts were produced. The High Court found that the earliest jamabandi for 1954–55 recorded the Gram Panchayat as owner in self-cultivation, and that only in Girdawari 1961 did Jagmal Singh abruptly appear as a tenant with no legal basis. Both PW1 (Patwari) and PW2 (plaintiff) admitted that no Gram Panchayat resolution existed, and the defendant’s Patwari confirmed that no rent was ever paid.

The Court held that a Panchayat, being a statutory corporation, can act only through resolutions, and unilateral changes in revenue entries cannot create tenancy rights. It further held that the plaintiffs never pleaded or proved the mandatory requirement under Section 5(2) of the Punjab Tenancy Act that rent paid was not higher than land revenue plus cesses making their claim to occupancy rights legally untenable. The Court also noted that most of the land remained recorded as banjar kadim, contradicting the plaintiffs’ assertion that they had made it cultivable.

Decision: The appeal was allowed. The suit for declaration was dismissed. The Court, however, clarified that although the plaintiffs were unauthorized occupants, they could not be dispossessed except in accordance with law, and the administration was free to pursue appropriate eviction proceedings.