Dear Experts,
I am an avid reader of your website for a long time and wish to sought expert advice from the property law experts.
One of my relative purchased 1/4 bigha of land in the year 2001 in Dehradun, Uttarakhand on the advise of their relative. Actually, the land purchased belong to the person belonging to the scheduled tribe community. The land purchased was on non-judicial stamp paper worth Rs. 10/- where the person of ST community wrote in his own hand writing that he is transferring 1/4 of bigha land to the purchaser with his own will and he or either his legal heirs will not take any legal action or will claim any legal rights of either ways to the sold land. It may be noted that that stamp paper was signed by the two witnesses (two witnesses were relative of the purchases) and also that stamp paper was signed by the Panchayat Head of the concerned area.
Now, after a period of 8-1o years, we came to know from the newspaper that the Nainital High Court in its order dated 2011 has striked down the law restricting purchase of agricultural land by outsiders to 250 square meters.
The Supreme Court in its order dated 21/9/2012 has ruled that land belonging to schedules castes or tribes cannot be bought by non-dalits including companies as such transactions are unconstitutional.
We have come to know that in the area where our relative purchased land, a lot of land purchase was done by wealthy people for building educational institutions and as such an engineering college was set up in that area. Now, a big wealthy person has started purchasing the land in that area and he has already purchased good bank of land in that area.
Now, that wealthy man contacted our relative for selling their 1/4 bigha of land but then we came to know that 1/4 bigha of land cannot be come under the provision of registration since it belonged to ST community. That wealthy man (he does not belonged to ST community) also told us relative that the said land bank is coming under the infrastructure project done by extending the length of highway roads by PWD. Also, it may be noted that most of the land purchased by this wealthy man belongs to ST community and many residents living in that areas belongs to the general community. Also, through a RTI, we have come to know that educational institution built in that area does not have requisite permission of revenue authorities or collector office.
Now, our question is that how we can negotiate our 1/4 bigha of land with that wealthy man either for land or either of money. Also, the ST community person is still there and that ST community man has sold around 10 bighas of land to that wealthy person. However, our 1/4 bigha land co-incidentally becomes the entry point of that whole 1/4 bigha of land. However, that wealthy man is not offering good amount to our relative and he is asking our relative to negotiate the land issue with the ST community man.
Also, we wish to bring to the kind notice of experts that wealthy man has offered ready made house to one of the witnesses involved in the purchase of 1/4 bigha of land in the year 2001 and that witness knew very well that the purchased land of 1/4 bigha belonged to ST community and the registration of land cannot be done to non-ST category.
Please guide us in this regard and also suggest the best legal remedy available in this regard considering the above said judgements of the hon'ble court.. With kind regards,
Negi
