THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GODA RAGHURAM AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY W.P.No.24699 of 2010 ORDER: (per the Hon’ble Sri Justice G.Krishna Mohan Reddy) This writ petition is directed against judgment made in L.G.C.No.51 of 2007 dated 3.8.2010 on the file of the Special Court under A.P. Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, Hyderabad filed by the Respondents 2 to 4 herein i.e. applicants in the land grabbing case to declare the writ petitioners who are respondents 1 to 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15 and 18 in the LGC and the respondents 5 to 12 in the writ petition who are the respondents 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16 and 17 in the land grabbing case and one Devarakonda Prasad as land grabbers of the property scheduled therein with an extent of 1450 sq.yards in Survey No.186/2 correlated to T.S.No.93 part, Ward No.9, Block 5 of Chirala Municipality, Prakasam district. For the sake of convenience, the parties hereinafter will be referred to as they arrayed in the L.G.C. case. The claim made in the Land Grabbing Case is as follows: 2. The grand father of the applicants namely late Utukuri Venkateswarlu was the absolute owner and possessor of the scheduled property along with other properties. After his death, the applicants succeeded to the property and accordingly they and their predecessors in title have been in possession and enjoyment of the same. Further, the respondents encroached the property without any manner of right, hence the respondents are to be declared as land grabbers and are to be evicted from the property and further the property is to be delivered to the applicants. 3. The Respondent No.8 filed counter, which was adopted by the Respondents 1 to 7, 9 to 12, 14, 15 and 18, contending that their forefathers worked as servants of the forefathers of the applicants and towards consideration of their work, they gave the schedule property to their fathers in the year 1918 conveying absolute rights therein and since then, they have been in possession and enjoyment of the same. Further in the year 1962, their third generation constructed pucca houses and subsequently got regularized the constructions in the year 1965 and the municipality allotted corresponding house numbers. They also constructed a Church in the centre of the schedule property in the year 1965. Further, no objection was raised by the forefathers of the applicants for the constructions and they have been residing in the said property since more than 80 years with a plea to dismiss the application. 4. The Respondent No.13 filed a separate counter also claiming that the forefathers of his wife occupied the schedule property and resided in a small house from the year 1926 onwards and subsequently they entered into a compromise by virtue of order in I.A.No.1024 of 2008. 5. Further, the Respondent Nos.16 and 17 remained ex parte in the land grabbing case. 6. Based on the above pleadings, the Land Grabbing Court framed the following issues for consideration: 1. Whether the applicants are the owners of the application schedule property? 2. Whether the rival title set up by the respondents is true, valid and binding on the applicants? 3. Whether the respondents are land grabbers within the meaning of Section 2(d) and (e) of the Act? 4. To what relief? 7. On behalf of the applicants, the first of them got himself examined as P.W.1 and the 17th respondent was examined as P.W.2 and one U.Umesh Kumar was examined as P.W.3 and got marked Exs.A1 to A10. On behalf of respondents, the first of them got himself examined as R.W.1 and the Respondents 12, 9, 18, 3, 14, 6, 11, 2 and 4 got themselves examined as R.Ws.2 to 10 respectively and got marked Exs.B1 to B123. 8. On due consideration of oral as well as documentary evidence available on record, it is held by the Land Grabbing Court that the applicants are the owners of the schedule property and the respondents have failed to prove their claim and in fact, the documents filed by the respondents do not relate to the schedule property and accordingly allowed the application declaring the Respondents 1 to 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14 to 18 as the land grabbers and dismissed the case against the respondents 5, 7, 8, 10 and 13 on the ground that they compromised with the applicants and directed the respondents 1 to 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14 to 18 to vacate the application schedule land in their possession within a period of two months from the date of order and further directed the Revenue Divisional Officer concerned to take to steps to evict the Respondents 1 to 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14 to 18 from the schedule property within a period of two months after the expiry of two months given to them and hand over the possession of the property to the applicants. Being aggrieved by the said judgment, the present writ petition is filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking a Writ of Certiorari to quash the judgment passed by the Land Grabbing Court. 9. It is the contention of learned counsel for the contesting respondents that they placed voluminous evidence before the Court below and established their long possession over the property and also established their plea of acquiring title to the property by way of adverse possession and emphatically no dispute was raised at any time with reference to their possession of the property and the constructions raised therein and the Land Grabbing Court failed to appreciate the oral as well as the documentary evidence properly and arrived at incorrect conclusions and hence it is a fit case where the judgment delivered by the Land Grabbing Court is to be quashed. 10. On the other hand, it is the contention of learned counsel for the applicants that the Land Grabbing Court properly examined the matter before granting the relief as prayed for, and absolutely there are no reasons to interfere with the judgment passed by the Court and therefore, the writ petition is to dismissed. 11. Heard both sides and perused the impugned judgment and other material made available on record. 12. Evidence was adduced in support of the respective claims. 13. Consequently it is to be examined as to whether the land grabbing Court properly considered the evidence available on record and arrived at correct conclusions and whether the order passed by the Land Grabbing Court is tenable or not. 14. Significantly, it is the admitted case of the contesting respondents that originally the property belonged to the forefathers of respondents, when they claim that their forefathers were given the property by virtue of their service rendered to the forefathers of the applicants or they acquired title to the property by adverse possession, they have to establish their claim by placing cogent evidence. It is needless to say that the burden of proof lies upon that person who approaches the Court to establish his right when it is denied by the opposite party. 15. Before the Lower Court, the contesting respondents mainly relied upon Ex.B8 which is a true extract of voter’s list for the year 1975 relating to Ward No.14 of Chirala Assembly Constituency and Exs.B23, B81, B94 which are possession certificates issued by the Mandal Revenue Officer, which are not public documents and which got no evidentiary value independently. All the remaining documents filed by the contesting respondents were not proved to be pertaining to their claim of long possession and title to the property. In fact, the Land Grabbing Court examined those documents in detail and held accordingly. 16. In order to establish the claim of the petitioners about acquiring title to the property by way of adverse possession, three ingredients are to be satisfied namely; 1. Ownership of the petitioners or their predecessors in title. 2. Their adverse possession of the property openly, continuously and adversely claiming title over the property to the knowledge of the owners. 3. It was for over the statutory period of 12 years. 17. But there is no supporting evidence to satisfy these three ingredients, so it cannot be said that they acquired title to the property by way of adverse possession. Further, in one way, their claim is based upon the so called conveyance of the property by the predecessors in title of the applicants and the other way, by virtue of adverse possession of the property, which pleas are quite contradictory means of the acquisition. When the conveyance of the property is claimed to be by virtue of such recognition of services, the acquisition of title on the ground of adverse possession for more than the statutory period of 12 years does not arise. There is no definite evidence as to when exactly the petitioners occupied the property. 18. Absolutely, there is no basis to reverse the findings recorded by the Court below. The Land Grabbing Court examined the matter properly and elaborately. Therefore, the impugned judgment passed by the Land Grabbing Court calls no interference by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The writ petition is devoid of merits and liable to be dismissed and accordingly dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. _________________ GODA RAGHURAM, J _________________________ G.KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY, J Date: 29.3.2011 DA THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GODA RAGHURAM AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY W.P.No.24699 of 2010 29.3.2011