Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa vs Late Surgeon Vice Admiral GP Panda through his Legal Heirs and Others
Background
In 1981, the Odisha government assigned about 4.8 acres of land in Bhubaneswar to a decorated ex-Army officer, Surgeon Vice Admiral GP Panda, under a scheme rewarding veterans of the Indo-China war, and he remained in continuous possession. Years later, the State separately alienated a much larger surrounding plot (including, it appeared, the officer's land) to a state industrial development corporation (IDCO), and then initiated resumption proceedings to take back the officer's land, alleging he had breached the conditions of his grant. The Orissa High Court ruled in the officer's favour, finding the resumption proceedings illegal, and IDCO and the State appealed to the Supreme Court (the officer's heirs, who had by then taken over the case after his death, also filed a connected appeal on peripheral points).
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the High Court had not improperly decided disputed facts under its writ jurisdiction: its findings were based on the parties' own admitted documents and record, including the State's own acknowledgment that the officer/his heirs were in possession. It found the State's attempt to resume land assigned decades earlier, without establishing what specific condition had been breached, and while simultaneously purporting to hand the same or overlapping land to IDCO, to be arbitrary and illegal: a government cannot "approbate and reprobate" (blow hot and cold) on the settled possession of an assignee. All three connected appeals (by the State, IDCO, and even the heirs' own appeal on minor points) were dismissed, upholding the High Court's judgment in the family's favour.
Lesson Learnt
Once the government has assigned land to a citizen under a lawful scheme and the citizen has remained in undisputed possession, the State cannot arbitrarily attempt to take the land back years later without clearly establishing a specific breach of the grant's conditions: inconsistent or contradictory conduct by government authorities will not be allowed to defeat settled rights.