PTCL Act: Proceedings to restore lands already restored and sold are illegal, says Karnataka High Court

The High Court of Karnataka ruled in a recent judgement that proceedings initiated under the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands-PTCL) Act, 1978, for restoring lands sold after they had been earlier restoring would be illegal and without jurisdiction. 

“If a grantee or his legal heirs, on getting the lands resumed and restored in their favour, once again choose to sell the lands that are restored to them, then, they would not be entitled to invoke the provisions of the PTCL Act for the second time and seek resumption and restoration of the lands,” Justice N S Sanjay Gowda said while dismissing the petition filed by Rudramma and her three children. 

The original grantee and Rudramma’s husband, Siddappa, was granted two acres and 20 guntas of land at Kenchammanahalli village in Davangere in November 1961. 

In April 1970, the grantee sold the land to one G Kotrappa, and in February 1972, Kotrappa sold it to one Goudra Channappa. 

In 1982, Siddappa approached the Assistant Commissioner under the PTCL Act for restoration of the granted land and on March 6, 1985, the land was restored. 

On April 6, 1985, Siddappa again alienated the land by selling the land to two individuals named Gowda Shivappa and Thungamma. In 2002, under the provisions of the PTCL Act, the land was again restored. After a round of litigation, the purchasers of the land, Shivappa and Thungamma, got the ruling in their favour by an order passed by the deputy commissioner in 2018. 

Challenging this order, the legal heirs of the original grantee argued that in view of the recent amendment, the question of delay in invoking the PTCL Act would be inconsequential and that the land was sold in 1985 after the PTCL Act had come into force. 

Justice Gowda noted that there is no ambiguity in Section 4 of the PTCL Act. 

“On a plain reading of Section 4, it cannot be in doubt that an alienation made in contravention of the terms of the grant or under a transfer in violation of Section 4(2) would be null and void. However, Section 4 only contemplated that a transfer made for the first time alone was required to be annulled, and it did not contemplate subsequent alienations made by a grantee after the lands were restored to his favour,” the court said. 

If the argument is accepted that the grantee, on getting the land resumed, can once again proceed to sell the lands without obtaining the government’s permission, then it would only lead to an anomalous situation where the provisions of the PTCL are capable of rampant abuse, the court said. 

“Such an argument would also lead to an unjust situation where a grantee is being granted a benefit despite their illegal action. Thus, in this case, a literal interpretation of Section 4 would not be appropriate, and a purposive interpretation would be needed. It would be the need of the hour since the division bench of this court in Bhadre Gowda’s case has held that the action of a grantee, in once again (or repeatedly) selling the lands which are resumed in his favour, amounts to a crime,” Justice Gowda said.