N. T. Bopanna S/O Late N. N. Thimmaiah v. State Of Karnataka Department Of Revenue Vidhana Soudha
2018-01-31
S.N.SATYANARAYANA
body2018
DigiLaw.ai
ORDER : 1. The petitioner herein, serving as a Soldier in the Indian Army, has come up in this writ petition seeking a writ of mandamus to direct the 2nd respondent – Deputy Commissioner, Kodagu District to consider his application dated 10.06.2015 for grant of 10 Acres of land in Sy. No.162 of Kongana Village, B Shettigeri Post, Virajpet Taluk, Kodagu District and any other relief this Court may consider fit. 2. Admittedly, the procedure for grant of land either to serving army personnel or ex-servicemen is governed by Rules 3, 4 and 5 of the Karnataka Land Grant Rules, 1969. Rule 3 provides the procedure for determining the lands available for reservation / disposal in any village. Rule 4 is with regard to grant of available land for agricultural purposes to different category of persons. As per the said Rules, reservation for grant of land in any Village to Ex-servicemen and Soldiers can be considered only after the land is identified as available for grant and the same is notified as per Rule 3. Even after identifying and publishing such lists as the land available for grant, only 10% out of that land could be reserved for grant either for serving army personnel or ex-servicemen, in terms of Rule 5. 3. In this regard, further it is noted that when several writ petitions filed by soldiers and ex-servicemen of Indian Army seeking grant of land were pending before this Court, a Co-ordinate Bench disposed of a series of writ petitions by passing a detailed Order on 25.08.2014 in W.P. No.26700/2013 connected with other batch of writ petitions, where guidelines are fixed so that the applications for grant could be considered. The guidelines are in the form of direction Nos.1 to 13 in the said Order. Therefore in this background, this Court would observe that the 2nd respondent – Deputy Commissioner cannot be directed to grant land to the petitioner as sought by him in a particular survey number. It would suffice to observe that the application of the petitioner dated 10.06.2015 shall be considered by the 2nd respondent in accordance with the Karnataka Grant Rules by following the guidelines issued in the aforesaid Order. The said exercise shall be completed by the 2nd respondent within a period of four months from the date a copy of this Order is produced before him.
The said exercise shall be completed by the 2nd respondent within a period of four months from the date a copy of this Order is produced before him. Writ petition stands disposed of in the aforesaid terms.