Supreme Court: Government Cannot Summarily Evict Where a Bona Fide Title Dispute Exists
· Reported by LiveLaw
The Supreme Court held that the government cannot use summary eviction to settle a genuine, long-standing dispute over who owns land, and must go to a regular civil suit instead. Where private parties hold registered sale deeds and mutation entries over decades of possession, the state's later claim of assigned or government land has to be proved, not asserted.
What this changes for a title check
For a title check this reinforces that a government or assigned-land flag on a survey number is a claim to investigate, not a verdict. Registered sale deeds plus long possession and mutation entries carry weight, and a summary state objection at auction or registration does not by itself defeat title. When a property carries an assigned-land or 22A note, the buyer should ask for the specific assignment order or regularisation GO and check whether the state ever adjudicated ownership in a suit, rather than treating the flag as fatal or ignoring it.
Checking title on a property in India? Run a LegiScore title report and get the encumbrance, registration and revenue records read together.