The decades-long legal tug-of-war over Alwara lands in Dadra and Nagar Haveli has reached its conclusion, with the Supreme Court refusing to interfere in a Collector’s decision taken more than half a century ago.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta, and N. Kotiswar Singh dismissed the petitions of the allottees, who had challenged the 1974 order that stripped them of their lands. The Court was clear—there was no hint of malice in the Collector’s action.
The roots of the dispute trace back to the Portuguese era. Lands were originally granted to the appellants or their predecessors during that time. When Dadra and Nagar Haveli was liberated in 1954, those allotments carried over. But by 1969, the local administration stepped in. Acting under the Agrarian Law then in force, the Collector declared the lands forfeited, pointing to the allottees’ failure to cultivate them.
The matter has since traveled through a labyrinth of courts. In 1973, the Bombay High Court initially quashed the Collector’s action but left the door open for fresh proceedings—provided the appellants were given a fair hearing. Seizing that window, the Collector reissued notices, considered the responses, and in 1974 reaffirmed the forfeiture.
The allottees kept the legal battle alive, winning some rounds before the trial court but losing momentum over time. By 2005, the Bombay High Court swung the pendulum back in favor of the administration, dismissing the suits outright.
With today’s ruling, the Supreme Court has effectively sealed the fate of the appellants, upholding the administration’s right to reclaim the land for non-cultivation.