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2025 (11) TMI 1087
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....721 OF 2020, 3433 OF 2020, 1594 OF 2023, 14082 OF 2024, 14085 OF 2024, 14073 OF 2024, 14070 OF 2024, 14103 OF 2024, 14104 OF 2024, 5491 OF 2019, 5490 OF 2019, 5489 OF 2019, 5471 OF 2019, 5470 OF 2019, 5472 OF 2019, 5488 OF 2019, 5499 OF 2019, 5482 OF 2019, 5477 OF 2019, 5486 OF 2019, 5475 OF 2019, 5485 OF 2019, 5484 OF 2019, 5479 OF 2019, 5492 OF 2019, 5493 OF 2019, 5497 OF 2019, 5498 OF 2019, 5495 OF 2019, 5496 OF 2019, 5494 OF 2019, 5500 OF 2019. Vikram Nath And Prasanna B. Varale. JJ For the Appellant(s) : Mr. R. Chandrachud, AOR Mr. Amey Nabar, Adv. Mr. Dhuli Venkata Krishna, Adv. Mr. Aryan Singh, Adv. Mr. Vineet Naik, Sr. Adv. Mr. Kunal Vajani, Adv. Mr. Sukand Kulkarni, Adv. Mr. Shubhang Tandon, Adv. Ms. Shraddha Chirania, Adv. Mr. Kunal Mimani, AOR Mr. Anish R. Shah, AOR Mr. Shivaji M. Jadhav, AOR Mr. V.a. Gangal, Adv. Mr. Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Sr. Adv. Mr. Vineet B. Naik, Sr. Adv. Mr. Shivaji M. Jadhav, Adv. Mr. Sukand Kulkarni, Adv. Mr. Brij Kishor Sah, Adv. Mr. Vignesh Singh, Adv. Ms. Apurva, Adv. Mr. Aditya S. Jadhav, Adv. Mr. Amit Kumar Gupta, Adv. Mr. Shreeyash Uday Lalit, Adv. Mr. Neelam Prasad, Adv. Mr. Archit Jain, Adv. Ms. Runjhun Garg, Adv. Dr. Rukma George, Ad....
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....shnan, AOR Mr. Ashwin Joseph, Adv. Mr. Saket Mone, Adv. Ms. Madhavi Divan, Sr. Adv. Mr. Guru Krishna Kumar, Sr. Adv. Mr. Vishesh Kalra, Adv. Mr. Ooril Panchal, Adv. Mr. Neel Kamal Mishra, Adv. Mr. Kush Chaturvedi, AOR Ms. Prerna Priyadarshini, Adv. Mr. Syed Faraz Alam, Adv. Mr. Atharva Gaur, Adv. Mr. Aayushman Aggarwal, Adv. Ms. Ayesha Choudhary, Adv. Mr. C.u.singh, Sr. Adv. Mr. Kunal Cheema, AOR Ms. Kirti Sharma, Adv. Mr. Rushabh Tripathi, Adv. Mr. R. P. Gupta, AOR Mr. Amol Chitale, Adv. Ms. Shweta Singh Parihar, Adv. Mr. Shartak Sharma, Adv. Mrs. Pragya Baghel, AOR Mr. Ravindra Keshavrao Adsure, AOR Mr. Raj Singh Rana, AOR Mr. Atul Y Chitale, Sr. Adv. Mr. Sidharth Das, Adv. Ms. Tatini Basu, AOR M/S. Ap & J Chambers, AOR Mr. Atul Chitale, Sr. Adv. Mr. Sanjay R Hegde, Sr. Adv. Mr. Joseph Pookkatt, Adv. Mr. Nilesh Sharma, Adv. Ms. Awantika Manohar, Adv. Mr. Dhawesh Pahuja, Adv. Mr. Dahwesh Pahuja, Adv. Ms. Parul Dhurvey, Adv. Mr. Bhuvan Thakker, Adv, Mr. Preetam Shah, Adv. Mr. K. Krishna Kumar, AOR Ms. Charu Sangwan, AOR Mr. Shubham S Dayma, Adv. Ms. Harshita Tyagi, Adv. Mr. Gaganjyot Singh, Adv. Mr. Anmol Kheta, Adv. Ms. Tanya Srivastava, AOR Mr. Gaurav Agrawal, Sr. Adv. Mr. Shardu....
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.... Raghavendra Sreyas, AOR Ms. Anagha S. Desai, JUDGMENT VIKRAM NATH, J. 1. The judiciary draws its strength from discipline and not dominion. The Constitution of India creates courts of record that are independent in their spheres and yet binds them together through a coherent hierarchy. The High Courts in India possess a wide jurisdiction, but the Supreme Court of India remains the final interpreter of law. Article 141 of the Constitution of India [Hereinafter referred to as, "the Constitution"] declares that the law laid down by this Court binds every court in the country. Further, Article 144 of the Constitution obliges all authorities, civil and judicial, to act in aid of this Court. These are not ceremonial recitals. They are the structural guarantees that convert dispersed adjudication into a single system that speaks with one voice and commands public confidence. 2. Appellate jurisdiction exists to correct errors and to settle the law so that like cases receive like outcomes. When a superior court reverses, modifies, or remands, the court below must give full and faithful effect to that disposition. The authority to decide on appeal carries the authority to requir....
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....ception that outcomes depend on the identity of the judge. In a constitutional judiciary, it is the law, as declared, that brings the conversation to a close. We restate the simple duty of Courts: apply precedent as it stands and give effect to appellate directions as they are framed. In that discipline lies the confidence of litigants and the credibility of courts. 5. The present batch of 96 civil appeals arises from the judgment dated 27.09.2018 rendered by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in a group of writ petitions preferred by the appellants. The High Court declined to interfere with the revenue mutations and annotations that described the subject lands as affected by forest proceedings and as having vested in the State. The High Court proceeded on the footing that notices said to have been issued around 1960 and published in the Official Gazette were sufficient foundation to treat the lands as private forest under the acquisition regime. On this approach the High Court dismissed the writ petitions and refused the declaratory and consequential reliefs sought by the landholders. One of those petitions is Writ Petition No. 6417 of 2015 which has given rise to the civil....
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....vement of soil or the reclamation of saline or water logged land, the prevention of landslips or of the formation of ravines and torrents, or the protection of land against erosion, or the deposit thereon of sand, stones or gravel; (c) for the improvement of grazing; (d) for the maintenance of a water supply in spring, river and tanks; (e) for the maintenance, increase and distribution of the supply of fodder, leaf manure, timber or fuel; (f) for the maintenance of reservoirs or irrigation works and hydro-electric works; (g) for protection against storms, winds, rolling stones, floods and drought; (h) for the protection of roads, bridges, railways and other lines of communication ; and (i) for the preservation of the public health. (2) The State Government may, for any such purpose, construct at its own expense in any forest such work as it thinks fit. (3) No notification shall be made under sub section (1) nor shall any work be begun under sub section (2), until after the issue by an officer authorised by the State Government in that behalf of a notice to the owner of such forest calling on him to show cause within a reasonable....
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....th trees (whether standing, felled, found or otherwise), shrubs, bushes, or woody vegetation, whether of natural growth or planted by human agency and existing or being maintained with or without human effort, or such tract of land on which such growth is likely to have an effect on the supply of timber, fuel, forest produce, or grazing facilities, or on climate, stream flow, protection of land from erosion, or other such matters and includes- (i) land covered with stumps of trees of forest; (ii) land which is part of a forest or lies within it or was part of a forest or was lying within a forest on the thirtieth day of August, nineteen seventy five; (iii) such pasture land, water-logged or cultivable or non-cultivable land, lying within or linked to a forest, as may be declared to be forest by the State Government; (iv) forest land held or let for purpose of agriculture or for any purposes ancillary thereto; (v) all the forest produce therein, whether standing, felled, found or otherwise;" Section 2(f) defines "private forest" as follows: "Section 2(f) - "'private forest' means any forest which is not the prope....
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.... (3) All private forests vested in the State Government under sub-section (1) shall be deemed to be reserved forests within the meaning of the Forest Act." Section 5 authorises State Government entry and taking over of possession of private forests which stand acquired and vested. "Section 5 - Power to take over possession of private forests Where any private forest stands acquired and vested in the State Government under the provisions of this Act, the person authorised by the State Government or by the Collector in this behalf, shall enter into and take over possession thereof, and if any person resists the taking over of such possession, he shall without prejudice to any other action to which he may be liable, be liable to be removed by the use of such force as may be necessary." Section 24 repeals Sections 34-A, 35, 36, 36-A, 36-B, 36-C and 37 of the Indian Forest Act on and from the appointed day, with a later re- enactment mechanism for restored lands brought in by the Amending Act of 1978 operating through Section 22-A. "Section 24 - Repeal of Sections 34-A to 37 of the Forest Act "(1) On and from the appointed day, Sections 34- ....
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....o proceedings culminated in a final notification under Section 35(1) of the IFA. The landowners state that the proceedings then lay dormant for extended periods. 7.2 The Maharashtra Private Forests Acquisition Act, 19754 commenced on 30.08.197 [Hereinafter referred to as, "MPFA"]. The landowners allege that even after its commencement the State Authorities did not take possession under Section 5 of the MPFA and for decades the lands continued to be dealt with as private holdings. Transfers were effected, permissions were granted by revenue and charity authorities, planning documents described the lands as agricultural or no development zones, possession remained with private owners or transferees, and no compensation was paid. The State Authorities, on the other hand, contend that publication of the notices and the inclusive definition of private forest in Section 2(f)(iii) of the MPFA furnished the legal basis for vesting. 7.3 Beginning around 2001, the State Authorities initiated an administrative exercise to annotate village records so as to reflect affectation by forest proceedings and vesting under the MPFA. Talathis and Circle Officers made entries in villag....
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....nded that possession had never been taken under Section 5 of the MPFA, that compensation had never been paid, and that the lands continued to be treated as private holdings in revenue and planning processes for long periods. Violations of the MLRC and breach of natural justice were also pleaded. 8.3 The State responded that issuance of notices referable to Section 35(3) of the IFA in the early 1960s brought the lands within the inclusive definition of private forest in Section 2(f) (iii) of the MPFA and that vesting under Section 3 of the MPFA followed as a matter of law. It was submitted that the challenged revenue entries were ministerial reflections of statutory consequences. The State also raised objections regarding delay and laches and pointed to departmental remedies available under the MLRC. 8.4 In many of these petitions the High Court heard the matters together and treated them as raising common questions. The issues framed typically included whether the fact of a notice said to have been issued under Section 35(3) of the IFA was by itself sufficient to attract Section 2(f) (iii) of the MPFA, whether service under Section 35(5) of the IFA and a final not....
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....e, the High Court rejected the submission that a prior declaration under Section 34-A was a sine qua non for measures under Section 35 of the IFA or for invoking Section 2(f)(iii) of the MPFA. 9.5 On vesting and its incidents, the High Court concluded that Section 3 of the MPFA, with its non obstante clause, prevailed over inconsistent zoning, permissions, or exemptions under other enactments. Development plans under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 and proceedings under the Urban Land Ceiling law could not defeat statutory vesting. The impugned revenue mutations and annotations were sustained as ministerial reflections of such vesting, and objections based on the MLRC were not accepted, particularly in light of directions issued in public-interest proceedings to update records. 9.6 Reliance was placed on the presumption of regularity of official acts; the fact that many petitioners were derivative owners without personal knowledge of the original events was noted. On this reasoning, the writ petitions were dismissed. 10. The judgement in Oberoi Constructions Private Limited v. State of Maharashtra (supra) was challenged in this Court and de....
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....e MPFA, the Court applied strict construction. Fundamental norms of fairness and good governance preclude unsettling settled civilian and commercial arrangements after prolonged State inaction, particularly where the State itself facilitated and acquiesced in development over decades. 10.7 Even assuming arguendo that the lands were forest, wholesale demolition and dispossession after half a century was neither feasible nor in the public interest on the facts recorded. The equities of third-party purchasers and residents, the State's prolonged acquiescence, and the practical impossibility of "restoration" militated against such a course. 10.8 In consequence, the appeals were allowed, the High Court's judgement was set aside, and actions premised solely on stale notices under Section 35(3) of the IFA were quashed. 11. After the judgement of Godrej and Boyce (supra), the High Court has followed it as a binding precedent and used its findings to decide similar matters, whose facts are akin to those of the appellants before us. Some of these are enlisted hereunder: 11.1 Satellite Developers Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra [2014 SCC OnLine Bom 66] Here ....
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....subsequent return, the High Court again insisted upon proof of service of the notice under Section 35(3) of the IFA. 11.10 Shree Maruti Sansthan Trust v. State of Maharashtra [2015 SCC OnLine Bom 7074] For a subsequent purchaser, the High Court noted that apart from an entry in the "Golden Register" there was no material showing issuance and/or service of a notice under Section 35(3) of the IFA. 11.11 Vishram Vishwanath Kunte v. State of Maharashtra [WP No. 594 of 2022, decided on 16.09.2022] During the pendency of an inquiry under Section 22A of the MPFA, a mutation entry branded the land as forest; the High Court deprecated recurring affidavits from State officers asserting that Godrej and Boyce (supra) laid down no law, terming this "continued defiance of the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Godrej & Boyce ... ". 12. However, for the present appellants, whose facts are similar to those of the various petitioners in the different judgements of the High Court as well as those in Godrej and Boyce (Supra) discussed above, the High Court vide the impugned judgment and order dated 28.09.2018 dismissed all the writ petitions. It would be worthwhile to record h....
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.... and contiguity with reserved forest. 12.7 The High Court emphasised that most petitioners were subsequent purchasers who came on the scene long after 30.08.1975, and stated it was "surprising" that they sought to contest service under Section 35(3) of the IFA without affidavits from original owners or contemporaneous material; burden was effectively placed on the petitioners to dislodge official records. 12.8 Entries describing lands as "Private Forest-Forest Department" were justified as having been made pursuant to directions in PIL No. 17 of 2002 and Government circulars; the High Court considered the challenge to such entries, decades after vesting, to be misconceived. 12.9 Arguments based on Section 21 of the MPFA were rejected; the High Court treated that provision as an enabling route, not a precondition to vesting already effected by Section 3 of the MPFA. 12.10 Contentions invoking the two-hectare exclusion in Section 2(f) (iii) of the MPFA were declined, the High Court holding that later allotment of gata/survey sub-divisions could not undo vesting. 12.11 Objections raised under Section 22A of the MPFA and to certificates unde....
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....nd this position is reflected in the revenue records that describe them as occupants. No possession was taken under Section 5 of the MPFA Act, no schemes were set in motion under Section 4, no compensation exercise was undertaken under Section 7, and no inquiry under Section 6 was held at a time proximate to the appointed day of 30 August 1975. The materials produced by the State include undated and unverified possession papers that do not inspire confidence when set against decades of undisturbed private possession. In one instance the State relies on a pipeline notice which was addressed to a person who was not the owner as on 29 or 30 August 1975. In another, the land forms part of an industrial estate converted to non-agricultural use long before 1975. In yet another, there was never any claim that a Section 35(3) notice was even issued. These features are wholly inconsistent with a completed vesting under Section 3(1) of the MPFA Act. 13.3 We are not persuaded by the Respondent State's reliance on post-hoc material. Satellite imagery and panchnamas drawn in 2016 do not establish the character of the lands on the appointed day, which is the only relevant date for S....
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....idence on the character of the land can be adduced by both sides. After the passage of nearly half a century, that exercise would be largely academic and would not cure the absence of the mandatory preconditions of a served notice under Section 35(3) of the IFA and a lawful progression towards a notification under Section 35(1). The authorities have also adopted a concluded litigating stance on the very matters they would be called upon to decide, which would not inspire confidence in the fairness of any remanded proceeding. In our opinion, the impugned judgment rests on a misreading of the Gazette, an impermissible dilution of mandatory statutory steps, and reliance on materials that are extraneous to the original basis of action. It therefore cannot be sustained. 14. While the High Court in the impugned judgement dismissed all the writ petitions by a common order, it did not attempt any principled differentiation among the petitions before it. Having closely examined the record, and in order to assess the distinctions the High Court is said to have perceived with the petitioners in Godrej and Boyce (Supra), we have undertaken our own classification for clarity. We have no hesi....
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....ements that led this Court to hold that vesting had not occurred in Godrej and Boyce (Supra). 14.3 We do not accept the distinctions on which the High Court sought to sidestep Godrej and Boyce (Supra). The fact that some appellants are subsequent purchasers does not diminish the requirement of service and a live statutory process. Godrej and Boyce (Supra) itself concerned a batch in which many parties were not original owners, yet the controlling principles were applied uniformly. The presence or absence of construction is equally irrelevant to the legal question of vesting. What matters is compliance with the prerequisites of the MPFA Act and the IFA. The present record shows revenue entries that continued to reflect private ownership and occupation. It shows a pipeline notice addressed to a person who was not the owner on the relevant date. It shows lands long converted to non-agricultural or industrial use. None of this allows the State to dispense with service under Section 35(3) of the IFA or to conjure a final notification under Section 35(1) of the IFA from a draft placed beneath a show cause. In our opinion, the differences invoked by the High Court are insubstanti....