This judgment does NOT decide the inter se disputes among the various claimants and societies, which the Court expressly did not go into; it does not adjudicate the transfer of lands to the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, which it merely noted; and it is not a criminal conviction of any revenue official — its fraud finding is made in the context of title, to explain why the revenue entries confer no right.
- Case
- Bandari Ramchander & Ors. v. Maitri Coop. Housing Society Ltd. & Ors.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1175
- Bench
- M. M. Sundresh; Satish Chandra Sharma
- Judgment by
- M. M. Sundresh
- Case numbers
- Civil Appeal No. 10699 of 2013; Civil Appeal Nos. 10701, 10685, 10700, 10682-10686, 10698, 10681, 10695-10697, 10702-10708 of 2013
- Outcome
- All appeals dismissed. The High Court's common judgment dated 16 April 2003 stands in substance: title to the Survey Nos. 100 and 101 lands at Miyapur vests in the State, and the appellants take no title through the impugned revenue entries. No order as to costs; impleadment and intervention applications dismissed; pending applications disposed of.
Supreme Court dismisses all the Miyapur appeals
The Supreme Court has dismissed all the appeals against the common judgment dated 16 April 2003 of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad, ending a title contest over 550 acres and 39 guntas in Survey Nos. 100 and 101 of Miyapur village, Serilingampally Mandal, Ranga Reddy district, Telangana.
Writing for the Bench, Justice M. M. Sundresh held that no grounds had been made out to allow the appeals and that the High Court's judgment showed no perversity warranting interference. “An act of fraud vitiates all solemn acts,” the Court said, describing the appeals as “a clear case of fraud committed to usurp the lands vested in the State.”
The appeals were accordingly dismissed, with no order as to costs; all applications for impleadment and intervention stood dismissed and pending applications disposed of.
- Supreme Court of India: Bandari Ramchander & Ors. v. Maitri Coop. Housing Society Ltd. & Ors., Civil Appeal No. 10699 of 2013 and connected appeals, 29 October 2026 (official judgment)paras 1, 4, 9, 58, 60, 64-67; PDF pp. 2, 4, 6, 42-44
A 1912 survey entry, a jagir abolition, and interpolated records
The history begins with the 1912 survey of Miyapur village, after which Ac. 277-05 in Survey No. 100 and Ac. 273-34 in Survey No. 101 were classified as Sarkari poramboke, as reflected in the classer register and Sethwar. The Court recorded that this 1912 classification was not in dispute.
The Court then traced the jagir chain: the Nizam's Paigah Commission (the Reilly Commission) and Firman Isfandar 1338, which restricted the rights of a jagirdar, and the Andhra Pradesh Abolition of Jagirs Regulation dated 15 August 1949, followed by Revenue Department Notification No. 8 dated 7 September 1949 transferring administration of paigah lands to the Hyderabad State (Jagir Administrator) with effect from 15 September 1949. The limited rights transferred by the firman were, the Court held, statutorily removed by the Regulation — and only thereafter were the pahanies and other revenue records interpolated.
Two sets of land-grabbing cases, then a common High Court judgment
Multiple individuals and societies claimed title and possession through three different sources, by inheritance and conveyance deeds. Before the Special Court under the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982, LGC Nos. 21 and 22 of 1994 — in which the erstwhile unified State of Andhra Pradesh was not a party — declared the respondents land grabbers of the Survey No. 100 land, while LGC Nos. 110/1994, 131/1995 and 136/1995, in which the State was impleaded, were dismissed on the finding that the disputed lands were poramboke lands belonging to the State.
On writ petitions against those Special Court judgments, the Division Bench upheld the findings in LGC Nos. 110/1994, 131/1995 and 136/1995, set aside the judgment in LGC Nos. 21 and 22 of 1994, declared the applicants and private respondents land grabbers, and held that title vested in the State. The appellants, some of whom had not been parties before the Special Court or the High Court, challenged that common judgment of 16 April 2003 before the Supreme Court.
The Court also noted that appellants claiming through Nawab Mohammad Khaisaruddin Khan were estopped and barred: concluded proceedings initiated at his instance before the Nazim Atiyat and his appeal before the Board of Revenue, together with receipt of the commutation amount, disentitled him and his successors from claiming title.
The questions: title, genuine entries, and perversity
The appeal turned on three linked questions: whether the appellants had any title to land that had vested in the State; whether the revenue entries on which they relied — above all the pattedar entry in favour of Raheemunissa Begum, wife of Abdul Salam — were genuine; and whether the concurrent findings of the Special Court and the High Court were perverse or called for equitable intervention.
On each, the Court answered against the appellants: the State's title was clearly established from the 1912 record onwards, the entries were bogus and without authority, and with title itself lacking there was no room for equitable relief.
Why the entries were bogus, not merely irregular
The inclusion of Raheemunissa Begum as pattedar, the Court said, appeared “quite strange” because the khasra pahanies of 1954-55 themselves recorded the land's nature as “dongala gutta kancha poramboke” — and because both the entries and the LGC Nos. 21 and 22 proceedings were made in total ignorance of the Abolition of Jagirs Regulation and the consequential Atiyat Inquiries Act.
The entries were made after the lands had vested in the State, without the knowledge of the administrator under the Regulation; inherent discrepancies in the pahanies, coupled with the evidence of the Mandal Revenue Officer examined as RW-8 in LGC No. 131/1995, established the suspicious circumstances. No order of transfer or mutation facilitated the entry — there was no corresponding entry in the faisal patti and pucca book for Survey Nos. 100 and 101, although that practice was mandatory — so the entries were made without authority or jurisdiction and constituted an act of nullity.
The Court added that it was surprising that so vast an extent could have been given as pattedar after vesting had already taken place, and that a Mandal Revenue Officer inspection dated 19 October 1995 found the land a boulder-covered wasteland with no visible agricultural operations or possession in favour of any party, including Raheemunissa Begum. The entries were therefore “bogus and not genuine, as it is a case of fraud orchestrated by persons in collusion with the revenue officials.” A plea of adverse possession was also not proved — and, the Court added, was not otherwise available. The “Zat Jagir” contention failed too: it had neither been taken nor proved before the Special Court, and the High Court had in any event found no substance in it on the merits, since what could be granted was only the revenue of lands.
Dismissed, with the HUDA transfer only noted
The Court dismissed all the appeals, with no order as to costs, and dismissed all impleadment and intervention applications and disposed of pending applications. It clarified that the State had not been a party in LGC Nos. 21 and 22 of 1994, so the Land Grabbing Court's decision there would have no bearing — and that, the High Court having considered all the cases together, no technical plea could in any event be raised on that ground.
It also took note of a further development — lands being transferred in favour of the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority — while expressly not going into the inter se dispute within the claims. And it refused equities: the case was a clear-cut attempt to grab valuable State-vested lands, and where the appellants' very title was lacking, there was no question of granting equitable relief.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: an entry is not a title
The judgment is a compact lesson in why revenue records do not create title. A pattedar entry made after vesting, without a mutation or transfer order and against the land's own recorded classification, is not a document of title at all — it is, in the Court's word, a nullity. Students should note the sequence the Court insists on: first the statutory vesting (1949), then the entry — an order that makes the entry impossible to sustain, whatever equities the occupant later invokes.
Note also the appellate discipline on display. The Court did not reweigh the whole record: it asked whether the concurrent findings were perverse, found they were not, and treated the fraud conclusion as following from admitted anchors — the 1912 classification, the firman, the 1949 vesting, and the missing mutation order — rather than from suspicion alone. That is why the equity plea failed at the threshold: equity follows a subsisting right, and here the Court found none.
- Supreme Court of India: Bandari Ramchander & Ors. v. Maitri Coop. Housing Society Ltd. & Ors., Civil Appeal No. 10699 of 2013 and connected appeals, 29 October 2026 (official judgment)paras 9, 44, 49, 51, 58, 60, 63; PDF pp. 6, 35, 37-38, 42-44
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the 1912 Sarkari poramboke classification and the 1949 jagir abolition together defeat the appellants' title claim?
- Why did the Court hold the Raheemunissa Begum pattedar entries bogus rather than merely irregular?
- Why did the absence of title also defeat the appellants' plea for equitable relief?
