PARVATHAMMA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition has been very vehemently agitated on a point that is of considerable importance to judicial proceedings. The petitioner before me parvathamnia claims that she is entitled to the grant of occupancy rights in respect of survey No. 43 of ravagodlu village. Uttarahalli hobli, Bangalore south taluk. We are not immediately concerned with the remaining two survey numbers because those are not the subject-matter of the controversy. The respondents had challenged the earlier order passed by the tribunal in favour of the petitioner before this court more than once. On the last occasion when the litigation had been raging for 23 years, a compromise was entered into and the compromise memo was tendered to the court. This was duly attested by the parties and their respective advocates. My brother ramakrishna, j. As he then was by order dated 4-10-1996 took the document on record and it is clear from the order passed that the court has applied its mind to the contents of the document and that it was not mechanically placed on record as sometimes happens. The order passed also indicates that the learned judge approved of the fact that the parties have compromised the long drawn out dispute and instead of passing the final order in order to be letter perfect, sent the case back to the tribunal for the limited purpose of giving effect to the compromise. The relevant part of the order is "the land tribunal shall pass an order as per the joint application within one month from the date of receipt of this order without insisting the presence of the parties. . ". This clearly shows that the learned single judge had sent the case back to give effect to the terms of the compromise and one of the possible reasons for it was that this court had in a series of earlier decisions propounded the view that in relation to land reforms cases the orders conferring the rights on the parties must come from the tribunal and from no other forum.

(2.) SEVERAL months after this was done, the petitioner filed a writ appeal and that the compromise was entered into and the plea taken up was that "a compromise in a matter of this nature is not permissible at all". The division bench did not interfere with the order passed by the learned single judge but disposed of the appeal with an observation that "if the parties so insist, they may pursue with their objections before the tribunal, for the tribunal to appropriately consider". Thereafter, the petitioner did file her objections before the tribunal in which she raised the contention that respondents 3 to 7 are not entitled to question the grant of occupancy rights to her in respect of survey No. 43 which is in dispute and effectively, that the terms of the so called compromise should not be given effect to; by implication, her submission was that the earlier situation must be maintained insofar as if she is entitled to occupancy rights vis-a-vis survey No. 43 that this position be protected. The tribunal effectively passed an order in terms of the compromise terms and it is this order that is challenged in the present proceeding.

(3.) MR. Bhat, learned counsel who represents the petitioner submitted that in the first instance, no compromise is tenable in respect of this category of cases and he therefore submitted that irrespective of whether the parties have for whatever reason submitted a document to the learned single judge that the court ought to have rejected it outright on the ground that such a compromise is not tenable. He made it clear that this statement is without prejudice to his basic contention that it is the petitioner's case that the compromise entered into was not under fair circumstances insofar as she was coerced and pressurised and that consequently the entire transaction is bad in law. I basically need to deal with the first argument because the learned counsel submitted that if it is demonstrated by a party who applies for occupancy rights that the party comes within the four corners of the Land Reforms Act, then the entitlements under that statute namely the grant of occupancy rights is something that accrues as a legal entitlement. He relied on the fact that the petitioner has come through the scrutiny process and has been successful and he submitted therefore that a competent legal forum having adjudicated in favour of the petitioner and held that she is entitled to the grant of occupancy rights that there can be no question of those rights being diluted or amended or set aside even through a compromise formula. The first part of the argument is undoubtedly correct but as far as the second aspect of the case is concerned there is a slight flaw. What needs to be pointed out is that the Land Reforms Act effectively confers a kind of bonanza on agricultural tenants but this is something that the party has to ask for and the tribunal has to examine the case and decide whether the party is entitled to it or not. These benefits do not ipso facto accrue and it must be remembered that before such an order is passed the competitive rights of the conflicting parties such as the land owners or the rival claimants are all taken into consideration and the tribunal ultimately adjudicates the issue. Situations are not unknown wherein it becomes practicable for the conflicting parties to agree to certain adjustments between themselves in order to put an end to disputes or as an overall practical via media. It would therefore be a dangerous proposition to lay down that in situations of this type, where there is long standing litigation and there are rival claimants that it would be impermissible for a court to sanction a situation wherein the parties themselves agree to a certain amount of give and take. Where I am in agreement with Mr. Bhat is to the extent that if the formula that is placed before the court is so manifestly unfair or one sided or unjust to one of the parties that a court ought not to sanction any such formula but in those of the cases where the parties themselves agree to a certain amount of give and take, if it is in the interest of the parties that the court would approve of it. Under these circumstances, I am unable to uphold the first limb of Mr. Bhat's argument that there is a total prohibition to the entertainment or acceptance of compromise formulae. I need to reiterate here that situations in which a court would sanction such an arrangement would be few and far between and further more, that it would be necessary that the arrangement does not run absolutely counter to the rules of fair play and the scheme of the law.