Reported by Mrinal Banik
Agartala: The Tripura High Court has overturned concurrent judgments delivered by two lower courts in a land dispute case from Dhalai district, holding that the findings were “perverse” and based on a misreading of and failure to consider crucial evidence.
Delivering the judgment in a second appeal, Chief Justice M S Ramachandra Rao observed that both the trial court and the first appellate court had failed to properly appreciate key documentary evidence placed on record by the plaintiffs.
“I am satisfied that the findings of both the Courts are perverse, that they have ignored material evidence and they have also misread the documentary evidence,” the High Court stated while allowing the appeal.
The dispute centred on 2.09 acres of land at Machkumbhi under Gandacherra subdivision in Dhalai district. Members of the Debbarma family had approached the High Court challenging a 2024 judgment of the District Judge, Dhalai, which had upheld a 2022 order of the Civil Judge (Senior Division), Ambassa, dismissing their title suit.
According to court records, the land had been allotted in 1997 to late Laipada Debbarma and his wife through an official allotment order issued under the Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act.
The plaintiffs claimed that portions of the land were temporarily allowed to be occupied by two individuals on humanitarian grounds, but the occupants later refused to vacate the property.
The defendants, however, contested the claim and argued that the disputed land formed part of a separate allotment allegedly granted to another individual, Surendra Reang. They also questioned discrepancies in survey maps and land records.
While examining the matter, the High Court noted that the lower courts had failed to give due weight to the allotment order and related khatians produced by the plaintiffs.
“A statutory allotment order cannot be ignored,” the Chief Justice observed, adding that the allotment order continued to remain valid and had never been cancelled or set aside by any competent authority.
The court further pointed out that the defendants had failed to produce the allotment order on which they based their own claim over the land. The High Court held that such non-production ought to have prompted the lower courts to draw an adverse inference against the defendants.
The judgment also criticised the reliance placed by the lower courts on an administrative communication questioning earlier survey procedures while ignoring statutory presumptions attached to land records under the Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act.
Coming down heavily on the first appellate court, the High Court observed that it had substantially reproduced the reasoning of the trial court without independently analysing the evidence on record.
“A First Appellate Court is expected to independently come to a conclusion. It is not expected to simply copy the trial court’s judgment,” the court remarked.
Holding that the findings of the two courts suffered from a “manifest misreading of evidence”, the High Court allowed the appeal, decreed the plaintiffs’ suit for declaration of title and recovery of possession, and set aside the judgments passed by the lower courts.
The High Court also directed that a copy of the judgment be placed in the service record of the trial court judge, observing that the issues involved in the suit had been dealt with in a “superficial and perverse way”.
