High Court rejects state govt’s bid to revive 45-year-old Pattandur Agrahara land case

Bengaluru:

The Karnataka High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by the State government challenging a 1980 order of the Bengaluru South Land Tribunal that had re-granted 11 acres and 20 guntas in Pattandur Agrahara to late H.B. Munivenkatappa.

Justice R. Devdas held that the State’s challenge—brought nearly four decades after the Tribunal’s decision—was hit by res judicata and barred by gross delay. 

The State had argued that the land, formerly old Survey No.15 and now Survey No.54, was a kere angala (tank bed) and therefore could not have been re-granted. However, the Court found that this very question had already been adjudicated repeatedly in earlier rounds of litigation, with findings upheld by both the High Court and Supreme Court. 

Justice Devdas noted that civil courts had, after detailed scrutiny, confirmed the existence and genuineness of the Land Tribunal’s 27 December 1980 re-grant order. A Division Bench had also validated these findings while remanding an earlier appeal, and the Supreme Court had subsequently affirmed the outcome when it dismissed the State’s Special Leave Petition in 2018. 

Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sultan Said Ibrahim vs Prakasan (2025), the judge reiterated that parties cannot reopen issues already adjudicated in earlier stages of the same or connected proceedings. 

The Court held that the State had approached the writ court “nearly 20 years” after the lower appellate court’s 2008 judgment that confirmed the Tribunal’s order and even granted the State liberty to challenge it. This delay, the Court said, was sufficient ground for dismissal under well-established principles of laches. 

Quoting the Supreme Court’s decision in Mrinmoy Maity vs Chhanda Koley (2024), Justice Devdas emphasised that writ jurisdiction is discretionary and cannot be used to revive “dead causes of action.” 

Prior findings—reaffirmed in this judgment—showed that only two tanks existed in Pattandur Agrahara (in Sy.Nos. 85 and 124), and that Sy.No.54 had never been recorded as a waterbody in survey sketches dating back to 1920. The appellate court had also found evidence of private transactions beginning in 1918 and revenue entries supporting continuous private ownership, contradicting the State’s tank-bed assertion. 

The judgment also highlighted improper alterations in revenue records, including a “clandestine” insertion of the words sarakari kere in ink, which the appellate court had rejected as an attempt to undermine the claim of Munivenkatappa. 

The Namma Whitefield Residents Welfare Association Federation, impleaded in 2021 to support the State, argued that public tank land should not be usurped. However, the Court held that these issues were already settled and could not be re-litigated. 

Concluding that entertaining the writ would amount to granting the State a “second chance” after pursuing multiple failed appeals, the Court dismissed the petition in full.