Raksha R. Acharya v. Deputy Commissioner & Competent Authority (ULC), Dakshina Kannada & Ors., Writ Appeal No. 3375 of 2018 (ULC), Karnataka High Court (Justices D.K. Singh and H. Shanthi Bhushan), decided on 01.10.2026 | CNR No. KAHC010256482018
Land that vests in the State under Section 10(3) of the ULC Act and whose de facto possession was taken before the Repeal Act came into force is saved from the Repeal Act and is not restored. Taking possession before the 30-day notice period under Section 10(5) is an irregularity that does not vitiate the acquisition, and the landowner’s right to object to it is waived if not raised within a reasonable time. A person who has no title after the State took possession cannot pass on any title by a Will.
The Karnataka High Court has held that land taken by the State under the Urban Land Ceiling Act in 1988 cannot be reclaimed by a granddaughter in 2013 under the repeal law, even though the State took possession before the 30-day notice period ended. The land is 60 cents in Padavu village, Mangaluru, which the owner, Smt. Lalitha, had declared under the ULC Act in 1981. The State declared it excess land by a Section 10(3) notification in 1987, issued a notice to surrender possession on 1 February 1988 and took possession on 12 February 1988, with a mahazar signed by the owner’s authorised representative and two witnesses. Compensation was fixed in 1994. Lalitha never objected and died in 2007. Her granddaughter, Raksha R. Acharya, claimed in 2013 that she held the land under Lalitha’s undated Will of 2007 and that possession was never taken, so the land was saved from vesting by Section 3(2)(a) of the ULC Repeal Act, 1999. A Tahsildar’s letter said the granddaughter was growing vegetables there, but he later admitted he had not visited the spot and had relied on a Revenue Inspector’s report. The Single Judge dismissed her petition and directed action against the officials. Justices D.K. Singh and H. Shanthi Bhushan upheld this. They held that she had to prove both that the land vested under Section 10(3) and that the State had not taken de facto possession, and that the mahazar showed that it had. The possession taken before the end of the 30-day notice period under Section 10(5) was only an irregularity, and relying on the Supreme Court’s Bhaskar Jyoti Sarma and Dalsukhbai Satasia, the objection is waived if not raised within a reasonable time, and here it was raised after 25 years. The court rejected the argument that the Tahsildar was not the competent authority, since he acted on the Deputy Commissioner’s orders, and held that documents from before 1999 did not show that possession was not taken. Applying the maxim nemo dat quod non habet, since the landowner had no title left, she could not pass any to her granddaughter by a Will. The appeal was dismissed.