The main legal point established is that failure to challenge government actions such as resumption and reclassification of land in a timely manner may limit the ability to dispute the validity of such actions.

JUDGMENT :

A.P. Sahi, J.

(Prayer: Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the order dated 6.11.2019 in W.P.No.26589 of 2019.)

1. This appeal questions the correctness of the judgment dated 6.11.2019 of a learned Single Judge, whereby the prayer made by the appellant against the order dated 11.4.2018 handing over the land in dispute to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board for its utilization has been denied. The land has been transferred treating it to be Anadhinam Poramboke land.

2. The claim of the appellant is that he purchased the land from one Karuppasamy vide sale deed executed in the year 1995. He was taken by surprise when the impugned proceedings dated 11.4.2018 were initiated for handing over of the land to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, whereafter he has approached this Court challenging the same in order to protect his possession on the basis of the said registered sale deed.

3. The respondents filed a counter affidavit stating therein that a conditional assignment of the land was given to Polappa Gounder and Panna Sakkili in 1963. Since the said grantees had violated the conditions of the grant of assignment, the land was resumed by the Government vide proceedings dated 4.12.1980 and 3.12.1980 and the classification of the land was altered as Poramboke Assessed Waste land. It is thereafter that in the year 2018 the land has been handed over by the Government to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board.

4. The appellant, on the strength of the title deed, contends that without any notice the land has been reclassified and has been erroneously assigned to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board behind the back of the appellant.

5. The prime contention of the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant is that the handing over of the land to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board could not have been done without even issuing a proper notice, in as much as under the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board Rules and Regulations and the Tamil Nadu Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1971, issuance of a notice is a prerequisite, which has not been done in spite of the fact that the appellant is the owner and occupant of the said land.

6. The second argument of the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant is that the resumption in the year 1980 has not been conducted by the competent authority, and the third argument is that the change of the classification of the land has also not been carried out in accordance with law.

7. Controverting the said stand of the appellant, the State had come up with a plea that after resumption, even the earlier vendor had no right to transfer the land through a sale deed in the year 1995. Thus, the appellant does not get any title or interest through the sale deed. Even otherwise, the resumption order of 1980 was not challenged, nor any such steps were taken either by the vendor of the appellant or by the appellant himself to question the same. It is also stated that the appellant does not have any lease rights, nor has any evidence been adduced by him to indicate that he has been paying any rent for the said land.

8. The learned Single Judge came to the conclusion that in the absence of any challenge raised to the resumption order, the right being claimed through the sale deed may not be available, as the land in question was classified and then entered as government land.

9. Having considered the submissions raised at length, we find that the claim of the appellant is that the land is, as a matter of fact, not Government Poramboke land, but is Anadhinam land. Anadhinam is a category of land under the Madras Estate Land Act [1 of 1908], Section 3(16) whereof has been dealt with by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the case of Dhullpalla Ramayya and others v. Kota Brahmayya and others, AIR 1958 AP 100, to hold that Anadhinam land is not private land, and it merely means unoccupied land.

10. In the counter affidavit filed by the Tahsildar, Sathyamangalam before the learned Single Judge, paragraph (2)