Land #384

Land bearing Survey #384, village Karamsad, has been one of the land assets of Baroda Electric Meters Ltd. (BEM) that has been constantly under litigation ever since it has come into the possession of the Company in 1986. The Case of Land #384 can be used as an excellent study material wherein members of the Judiciary, Law students, Legislative members, and other citizens can analyse and deliberate, as to why the Indian Judiciary system, in its current state, is unable to deliver justice to BEM over the past 35 years. The objective is to identify the faults of the existing Indian Judiciary System and to correct it so that the Judiciary is able to wield Power in the right manner and correct direction and thereby command the respect from the people at large.

The attention of the readers is particularly directed to the following main faults with the Indian Judiciary in its current state.

1. The inability of an Hon'able Court to decline registration of a new case if the case matter has been handled before and judgement passed on it. Even if earlier judgements have been passed in favour of a one party, the opposing party can register a fresh case to keep harassing the former, and repeat this action for eternity. Due to this inherent deficiency, the winning party would never be able to reap the benefits of judgements passed in its favour.

2. Another deficiency of an Hon’able Court is - ‘Court knows Laws, but not True Facts’. By hiding true facts, and through non-joinder of necessary parties, the deceitful abuse the process of the Hon’able Court and get it to deliver an erroneous judgement. This deprives justice to the righteous parties and tarnishes the Hon’able Court’s name.

3. The lack of respect to the Natural Laws (Laws of Nature) or knowledge that is considered common sense and has higher precedence in comparison to Codified Laws. Of prime most importance are Mathematics and Science. For instance, related to such Laws,

   1. Two pieces of land of 1 acre each has to add up to 2 acres and not 1 acre. (Numbers in Mathematics)

   2. A portion of Land to the North cannot change directions and become South. (Science)

   3. The decimal point in any real number is significant (cannot be ignored or wrongly inserted). For instance area of 4524 square meters cannot be printed as 45.24 square meters. (Decimal system, Mathematics)

   4. If a land that comes under the jurisdiction of the GIDC Notified Area, then it cannot come under a Municipality (Not logic truth table)

   5. Land Tax can be demanded and collected by either Notified Area Tax Officer or Municipality, only one body at a time and not both (This comes under the popular IFTTT - if this then that Logic). (Logic in Mathematics)

An Executive/ Judge who ignores such trivial facts and laws of nature cannot be deemed fit to pass judgements regardless of his/her rank and post; and regardless of the fact that he/she knows the Codified (Civil or Criminal) Laws well.

4. If an Hon'able Court passes a wrong judgement and an higher Court corrects it, it is the responsibility of the higher court to ensure that the lower court acknowledges the same and arrange for compensation towards damages that has resulted as a consequence of the wrong judgement.

5. A Court passing a judgement, on a matter that has been heard and ruled by another Court of the same or higher Rank, without referring to the Records and Proceedings (R & P) of the earlier Court, amounts to contempt of the earlier Court.

There are many such deficiencies that need to be corrected. However, to ensure that we achieve results, I believe in 'Baby Steps'. Correcting one deficiency at at time. If we correct the above five and then proceed to the next five, I believe, that collectively, these corrections would yield amazing results.

In 1963, Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) approached us Baroda Electric Meters Ltd. (BEM) and expressed its interest in some of BEM's free hold land to develop Vithal Udyognagar Industrial Estate and suggested a plan to exchange lands of equal area to achieve its goal.

An agreement was reached between BEM and GIDC which was reduced into executing the Deed of Exchange on 26-12-1989 with Registration No. 4593 in Book No. 1 by the Registrar, Anand. The suit land parcels (R.S. #384/P, R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land and R.S. # 767/1+2/P) were amongst the other land parcels exchanged by GIDC with BEM.

The physical possession of the suit land parcels amongst other land parcels were exchanged on 18-06-1986.

The exchange was entered in Land Revenue Documents 7/12, and Village Form No. 6 of Rights as Entry No. 23123 dated 19/10/1991, but later cancelled on 20/11/1991 due to a mismatch in area, and later re-entered as Entry No. 27669 dated 20/11/1998.

BEM believes Industrial Estate Development was necessary for the progress of the Indian economy, and considering that GIDC has a big team to handle land acquisition, industrial land development and has GIDC Act, Land Acquisition Act 1894 to support it, BEM trusted GIDC and agreed to the Land Exchange as described above.

During the course of the court hearings BEM learnt that GIDC has executed the Deed of Exchange in an unprofessional manner and that there were many lapses on the part of GIDC. For instance, as per Survey carried out by District Inspector Land Records (DILR), Kheda, on 20/02/1995 under the directions of the Hon’ble Court Commissioner appointed in RCS #431/1991, it was discovered that there was a shortfall in the land that GIDC had handed over to BEM. To compensate for this shortfall, GIDC returned back a small portion of BEM's own land under R.Survey #767 /1+2/P that had BEM's Water Shed, Bore and Tank that was feeding BEM's factory work premises. To compensate for the shortfall in R.S. #769/1+2/P, NAL and other land, the small portion of R.S. #767 /1+2/P with the Water Shed, Bore and Tank admeasuring A -G = 00 - 10 was physically returned back while the supporting paperwork is still pending from GIDC.

Noticing the above lapses, a local Land Mafia, allegedly hiding behind a former land loser (under Land Acquisition), one Mr. Purshottambhai Shankarbhai Thakore, under the guise of a ‘tenant’, has been harassing BEM for the past 33 years ever since the possession of R.S. #384 was handed over by GIDC to BEM. In the sheet below a list of 42 Nos. of Court litigations in various Courts ranging from Agricultural Land Tribunal to the High Court that the BEM has faced over the past 30 years.

BEM has WON all the three separate frivolous cases that relates to suit land R.S.#384/P, namely RCS 235/1995, RCS 108/2007 and RCS 180/2009 filed by the self proclaimed tenant - Purshottambhai; the judgement of the last case was received on 05/09/2019.

Purshottambhai’s father Shankarbhai was a tenant of R.S.#384/North P (which is not part of the suit land described above) before it was acquired by GIDC in 1975, and Purshottambhai was approaching courts with unclean hands (hiding facts and not joining necessary parties) to generate erroneous judgements in the lower Revenue Courts.

In the frivolous RCS 180/2009, a temporary injunction was granted in favour of Purshottambhai on 26/04/2010 for land R.S. #384.

On 12/01/2012 in MCA 60/2010, the temporary injunction was squashed by the Hon’ble District court. This offered no benefit to BEM, whose access into the suit land parcels (R.S. #384/P, R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land and R.S. # 767/1+2/P) remained restricted due to threats and assault by Purshottambhai and his Mafia gang.

On 20/06/2018, the Managing Director (MD) of BEM received information from BEM’s Security Guard about illegal construction activities on the Plaintiff’s suit land parcels. The MD visited the site and saw that its Water Shed, Borewell and Tank on R.S. # 767/1+2/P was demolished, boundary wall demolished, land flattened and paver blocks were being placed on land R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land and R.S. # 767/1+2/P belonging to BEM.

On the same day while returning back from the site, I was assaulted by Purshottambhai Shankarbhai Thakore (allegedly part of the Land Mafia) in front of R.S. #384/P. Currently the Criminal Case CC5366/2018 is ongoing in the Hon’ble Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court, Anand.

BEM later learnt that the land adjacent to the suit land, namely parcels bearing R.S. #385/P and #386/P and the building premises has been purchased by DMart and that they were the ones trespassing on the suit land.

The suit land parcels, R.S. #384/P, R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land and R.S. # 767/1+2/P, have NOT been sold by the Plaintiff. While, land R.S. # 767/1+2/P has been in the possession of BEM ever since it was established in 1961, the R.S. #384/P, R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land has been in the possession of the BEM since 1986 when it was handed over by GIDC under the land exchange agreement.

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BEM initiated correspondence with the DMart on 19th February 2019, with a copy to GIDC to make them both aware about the tortious interference by DMart hat is disturbing the peaceful possession of the suit land parcels belonging to BEM. We suggested that they pull back their boundaries to match that of land parcels (R.S. # 385/P and 386/P) that they purchased.

DMart requested for more time that was granted by BEM. During the numerous correspondence, BEM offered all documents requested by DMart (including maps from District Inspector Land Records (DILR) and assistance to use Google Maps), for its reference. However, DMart did not reciprocate by sharing documents in its possession. BEM realized that DMart has been simply wasting BEM's time on the pretext of investigation/ examination/ scrutiny/ verification. Hence, BEM filed a suit, RCS329/19, to eliminate further tortious interference by DMart.

BEM has indicated to DMart and GIDC that neither the purchase nor the GIDC Commencement Certificate is of relevance to the BEM as long as it refers to the Defendant #1’s property located on the specific land parcels bearing R.S. #385 and #386 and listed in DMart’s correspondence dated 26/02/2019.

That BEM is only concerned about the tortious interference on property located on suit land parcels, namely, R.S. #384/P, R.S. #769/1+2/P + NAL Land and R.S. # 767/1+2/P belonging to BEM, that has neither been sold to DMart, nor to anyone else.

Ridiculous Facts in the Cases related to Survey Land 384, Village Karamsad, District Anand, Gujarat.

1. In the Temporary Injunction dated 26/04/2010 of Case: RCS180/2009, Anand Civil Court, Purshottambhai Shankarbhai Thakore vs. Baroda Electric Meters Ltd. the document referred was Revenue Document 7x12 that was manipulated to display BEM Ltd. to be in possession of only 45.24 sq. mts. of land instead of 4,524 sq. mts.
   The fact that the placement of decimal point is a typo error becomes clear if one adds up the area of all the land parcels together as follows: 4524 + 2153 + 1417 = 8094 sq. mts or 2 acres which is the area of the total land. The Court has shown its inability to catch this vital typo error.

2. In Judgment dated 05/09/2019 (10 years after filing) of Case: RCS180/2009, Anand Civil Court, Purshottambhai Shankarbhai Thakore vs. Baroda Electric Meters Ltd.
   Issue No. 2: Whether the plaintiff proves that Athamni that is West of the Anand Sojitra Road is now Dakshini that is South of the disputed property.
   After removing grammatical errors and typo:
   Issue No. 2: Whether the plaintiff proves that the disputed property lying to the West, i.e. ‘Athamni’ of the Anand-Sojitra Road is now lying to the South, i.e. ‘Dakshini’ of the Anand-Sojitra road. This ‘corrected’ issue, too, makes little sense since Anand-Sojitra Road runs from East to West!
   In Para 9, Page 11 of the Judgement, in connection with Issue No. 2, the court observes that since the plaintiff has not provided any evidence to support, its response is in the Negative.

3. Issue of Aakarni