Himachal: CSIR Loses Ownership Rights for Failing to Take Land Possession for 30 Years
Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh High Court has dismissed CSIR’s petitions related to property rights and land acquisition, stating that the law protects only those who are vigilant about their rights, not those who remain inactive for decades.
The court clarified that if a department fails to take actual possession of land even after acquisition for 30 years, the residents of the land can claim ownership under adverse possession. This case stems from the land acquisition process initiated in 1966 for establishing the National Biological Research Institute in Palampur.
The bench of Chief Justice Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia and Justice Bipin Chandra Negi observed that CSIR should have taken possession within six weeks of the 1966 award. Since the respondents have been residing on the land and carrying out construction since 1966, they have established ownership through adverse possession. The court upheld the collector’s decision that applying for possession after a 23-year delay is legally invalid.
Although CSIR deposited compensation, it did not take any concrete steps to take possession for 30 years. The first civil suit was filed in 1989, which the collector rejected based on adverse possession claims. Later, a single judge annulled the acquisition under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act. The bench corrected this, noting that after the Supreme Court’s Indore Development Authority ruling, acquisition cannot be canceled solely for failure to take possession, but here the principle of adverse possession applied.
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