The Karnataka High Court has rejected a private claim over land being used as an aircraft taxi track by the Indian Air Force at its Yelahanka station, holding that government records clearly established the Defence Ministry’s ownership.
A Division Bench of Justice D K Singh and Justice H Shanthi Bhushan overturned an earlier single-judge decision that had accepted the claim of Mohsin Sharieff over land at Sonnappanahalli in Bengaluru.
In strong observations, the Bench said an attempt had been made decades after the original acquisition to create a private title over land that had long been used for defence purposes.
“The taxi track of the Indian Air Force has been subjected to trickery of the highest order,” the Court observed, adding that the attempt to assert private rights over the property had not survived judicial scrutiny.
The dispute concerns land in Survey Nos. 32 and 33. Sharieff based his claim on a 1995 agreement of sale executed with the heirs of the property’s original owner.
He later filed a suit for specific performance in 2008. The civil court ruled in his favour, and a sale deed was subsequently executed in January 2015 through a court-appointed commissioner.
The Defence Ministry challenged the claim, maintaining that the relevant portion of Survey No. 33 had already been acquired by the government in 1943 for defence purposes and that compensation had been paid to the original owner.
An earlier single-judge ruling had taken a different view, noting that Survey No. 33 was not expressly mentioned in the 1943 gazette notification. The single judge concluded that the land fell outside the acquisition and directed revenue authorities to record Sharieff’s name.
The Division Bench, however, found that the wider documentary record told a different story.
It relied on the acquisition papers, survey records, compensation documents, village map and Military Land Register. These records, the Court said, demonstrated that the disputed property had formed part of the 1943 acquisition and had subsequently been used by the IAF.
The Bench found that the reference to “Survey No. 30” in the gazette was a typographical mistake. A survey report prepared in February 1944 specifically referred to Survey No. 33 and recorded that 3 acres and 12 guntas had been used for the aircraft taxi track.
The Military Land Register also recorded the same extent as Defence property. The Bench treated the official defence record as decisive evidence of the Union government’s title.
The Court consequently held that Sharieff could not have obtained valid title from the original owner’s heirs in 1995 because the government had already acquired the property and paid compensation more than five decades earlier.
The timing of the later transactions also drew sharp criticism from the Bench. It noted that the 1995 agreement came long after the acquisition, while the specific performance proceedings were initiated only in 2008.
The sequence, the Court said, “shocks the conscience of the Court and calls for closer scrutiny.”
The Bench further held that the decree passed in the civil suit could not bind the Union government because the Defence Department had not been a party to those proceedings. A decree in such circumstances could not be used to create title against government property.
Emphasising the strategic role of the Air Force, the Court observed that air defence is fundamental to national security and described the IAF as a critical part of India’s defence infrastructure.
The Division Bench accordingly set aside the earlier single-judge order and restored decisions issued by the Assistant Commissioner in 2022 and the Deputy Commissioner in 2023. The Defence Ministry’s title over the disputed land therefore stands affirmed.