A property dispute that dates back to the early years after Independence has finally been settled, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court bringing closure to a 62-year-old legal battle in favour of the original allottee’s family, according to TOI.
In a significant ruling, the High Court directed that a 5,103 sq ft plot in Faridabad district, purchased for less than Rs 14,000 in the 1960s, be handed over to the rightful heir at an additional cost of just 25 per cent of the original price. The land’s current market value is estimated to be close to Rs 7 crore. The sole heir, C K Anand, is now over 80 years old.
“A party that has deferred performance for decades cannot invoke market escalation as a shield,” the bench of Justice Deepak Gupta observed in the recent order.
Dispute rooted in a 1963 housing project
The case originated in 1963 when M/s RC Sood & Company Ltd launched the Eros Gardens residential colony near Suraj Kund in Faridabad. Anand’s mother, Nanki Devi, booked two plots — Plot No. 26-A measuring 350 square yards and Plot No. B-57 measuring 217 square yards — at rates of Rs 24 and Rs 25 per square yard, respectively.
Nanki Devi paid nearly half of the total sale consideration. However, possession of the plots was never handed over. Soon after the bookings, the Punjab Scheduled Roads and Controlled Areas Act, 1963, came into force, followed by the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975. The developer cited these statutory changes as reasons for the delay, repeatedly assuring buyers that possession would be granted once approvals were secured.
Decades of litigation across generations
By the mid-1980s, fearing that the plots could be sold to third parties, the allottees approached the court seeking an injunction to prevent alienation. At that stage, the High Court held that the allotments remained valid and could not be unilaterally cancelled by the developer. Despite this, possession was still not given.
The present phase of litigation began in 2002, when the matter again reached the courts. While lower courts ruled in favour of the allottee’s family, the developer challenged those orders before the High Court. The company argued that the claim was time-barred, that the allotment had allegedly been cancelled in 1964, and that enforcing such an old agreement would be unfair given the steep rise in land prices.
In a detailed 22-page judgment released on Saturday, Justice Gupta rejected all these arguments, holding that the developer could not benefit from decades of delay of its own making. The ruling finally brings closure to one of the region’s longest-running property disputes, reaffirming the rights of the original allottee against a private developer.