New Delhi, Oct. 22: The Bengal government has to return the land it had taken over from some residents of an area that was once part of Bihar before it was merged with Bengal under a 1956 transfer of territories act.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the state government cannot take away such plots without issuing a proper notification.

A bench of Justices M.Y. Eqbal and P.C. Ghose set aside concurrent judgments passed by Calcutta High Court and the Land Reforms Tenancy Tribunal, saying their orders “cannot be sustained in law”.

The apex court’s order came on an appeal filed by one Pradeep Kumar Maskara and other landowners who had challenged the state’s decision to acquire over 38 acres of agricultural land in Dalkhola (North Dinajpur) that was part of undivided Bihar before its merger with Bengal.

The West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955, came into force in March 1956 and the 38.8591 acres were transferred by virtue of the enactment of the Bihar and West Bengal (Transferred Territories) Act, 1956.

The state government took over the land in 1983 following vesting proceedings initiated in 1976 under Section 14-T of Chapter II-B of the Land Reforms Act.

In November 1994, however, a single-judge bench of Calcutta High Court quashed the acquisition proceedings on the ground that there had been no notification for acquiring the land. The state did not challenge the order.

In another case, too, the same year, a single-judge high court bench had quashed similar acquisition proceedings.

When Maskara and the other landowners approached the tribunal for recovering their land, the tribunal refused to give effect to the 1994 orders. By then, another single-judge bench had — in 1997 — upheld the acquisition proceedings by the state in another case involving one Gangadhar. This bench said no formal notification was required for acquiring land.

The tribunal, which relied on the 1997 verdict, took the wrong view that the Gangadhar case had been decided by a division bench and, therefore, had an overriding effect over the two earlier high court judgments in 1994.

The landowners appealed before a division bench of the high court, which agreed with the tribunal. The landowners then moved the apex court, which upheld their appeal.

The top court said the tribunal committed a “grave error” in following the decision in the Gangadhar case, treating it to be a division bench judgment when the decision was of a single judge.

“The order passed by the land tribunal is erroneous in law,” the apex court said.

“The high court also fell in error in affirming the order of the tribunal, hence these orders cannot be sustained in law,” Justice Eqbal, writing the judgment, said.

“For the reason aforesaid, these appeals are allowed and the orders passed by the high court and the tribunal are set aside.”