High Court upholds rejection of Roshni Act ownership claims

Srinagar, Nov 13: The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has dismissed three separate appeals filed under the scrapped Roshni Act by Ghulam Rasool Mushtari and others who had sought ownership rights over portions of State land in Srinagar. The Division Bench of Justice Shehzad Azeem and Justice Sindhu Sharma upheld the earlier Single Judge order dated 24 July 2018, which had rejected similar petitions.
The appellants had approached the court claiming ownership rights over land located in Ram Pora Chattabal and Batamaloo areas of Srinagar under the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001, widely known as the Roshni Act. They argued that their continued possession of the land entitled them to ownership benefits granted under the erstwhile legislation.
The court, however, recorded that the land in question had long been registered as State land and was transferred to the Srinagar Municipal Corporation following acquisition proceedings in 1989. In its detailed 15-page judgment, the Bench observed that the appellants were attempting to revive an issue that had already been settled and described the effort as equivalent to trying to bring a dead horse back to life.
The Division Bench noted that the appellants were effectively trying to justify an invalid claim over State land through repeated litigation. Citing the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Modi versus K N Modi, the Bench reiterated that re litigation is an abuse of the judicial process and cannot be entertained.
The court further highlighted that after the 2020 Division Bench judgment in Prof S K Bhalla versus State of Jammu and Kashmir, which declared the Roshni Act unconstitutional and void, no claim based on that law can survive. The Bench stated that when the parent law itself stands invalidated, any claim founded on it automatically collapses.
Rejecting the appellants’ plea seeking parity with other alleged beneficiaries, the court held that even if any forum had committed irregularities in other cases, courts cannot be compelled to repeat or extend any illegality. Concluding the matter, the Bench stated that it found no error in the judgment under challenge and dismissed all three appeals with the concurrence of the Chief Justice. [KNT]