The J&K High Court has asked the Army to vacate 4, 000 Kanals (about 957 acres) of land it has occupied for past 57 years in central Kashmir’s Budgam district.

Landowners and small farmers from 15 villages had in 1998 filed a case against the Army for allegedly occupying their land in Kharewha-Damdehera area.

The Army, in a plea filed on its behalf by the Government of India, contended that landowners had agreed to its requisition for the land and that landowners “were being paid rent regularly”. Land owners, however, said they had rented out the land temporarily (so had the right to claim it back) and that they were not “compensated properly”.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir while dismissing the Army’s plea observed that the “appellants certainly have discretion in the matter of release of the requisitioned land”.

“While acquisition is forced sale, requisition is obtaining of tenancy by force of law. If the requisitioning authority converts the the requisitioned property into practically an acquisition, that is, it keeps the title holder of the property away from the property for an unreasonably long period of time, it would tantamount to commitment of fraud by the requisitioning authority,” the bench observed.

The court said that though requisition of a property can be made for a permanent purpose and accordingly, once a property has been requisitioned permanent structures can be constructed thereon, but that “does not mean that requisition can be permanent. It must come to an end after passage of reasonable period of time”.