Regularization Scheme Doesn't Cover Every Unauthorized Occupant Of Govt Land: AP High Court Rejects Plea Against Eviction

Noting that the regularisation scheme did not universally shield all unauthorised occupations of Government land, a division bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice Ravi Cheemalapati held,

“Mere filing of a memo accompanied with a copy of the regularization scheme would not itself have been sufficient to claim any omission on the part of the Court to grant an appropriate relief more so, when there was no specific direction sought in the petition in the light of the scheme of regularization. Even otherwise the regularization scheme reference to which has been made by the learned counsel before us, needs to be gone into minutely, as the scheme to us is not meant to cover every case of unauthorized occupation over Government Land. The presence of a scheme for regularization may, in fact, is an independent cause of action for which the petitioners perhaps may have a remedy yet again before the Court.”

Background

The Division Bench was dealing with a Writ Appeal challenging a judgment dated 04.04.2025, passed by the Single Judge whereby no irregularity was found in the eviction proceedings initiated by the official respondents (State) against the petitioners.

The petitioners were in occupation of a parcel of land belonging to the Government. By way of the writ petition, they sought protection from eviction from the said land by the respondent authorities.

The single judge dismissed the writ petition on the ground that the petitioners had failed to place on record any documents which would otherwise support their claimover the property. Additionally, it was held that electric connections which had been made available in regard to the said property, would also not confer any right or entitlement to the petitioners over the subject land. Aggrieved, the petitioners moved the Division Bench in appeal. 

The petitioners-appellant argued that the Single Judge had failed to notice that during the pendency of the writ petition and in the interregnum, the Government, vide a January 29 Government Order (GO) had come out with a scheme of regularisation of unauthorised occupation over Government Land and therefore, since there did exist a right, the petitioners ought to have been protected.

The division bench initially observed that the Single Judge in the impugned order had “confined his consideration to the reliefs that had been prayed for in the writ petition and the arguments that had been advanced during the course of hearing before it. In case the petitioners had appropriately amended the writ petition at the appropriate time and in case the learned single Judge had omitted to notice the arguments advanced during the course of hearing in the judgment and order impugned, in those circumstances, it would be appropriate for the petitioners to file a review petition before the learned single Judge.”

Thereafter, the Court observed that simply enclosing a memo with the copy of the regularisation scheme did imply any omission on part of the Court in granting relief, especially in the absence of any specific directions in the petition, and the scheme itself did not universally apply to all unauthorised occupations of Government land.

Finding no illegality in the impugned order, the bench accordingly dismissed the appeal.

Case Details:

Case Number: WRIT APPEAL NO: 592 of 2025

Case Title: Nallaballe Sreenivas and others V. The State of A.P. and another

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