‘Missing records’: HC bins encroachment case against Ganjam school

Cuttack: Flagging official apathy and a decades-old plea stuck due to “missing” records, the Orissa high court has quashed an encroachment case against a private school in Ganjam district and directed revenue authorities to take a fresh decision on its land settlement request within three months.

“It is unacceptable that an official file would go ‘missing’ for decades,” Justice S K Panigrahi observed, adding that the consequences of administrative lapses cannot be thrust upon an institution that has been running for over three decades with the knowledge of the authorities. The judge said the pendency of an alienation proposal creates a bar against treating the occupant as a wilful encroacher until a decision is taken.


Justice Panigrahi further held that reviving or initiating eviction proceedings “in medias res” (in the midst of things) would be arbitrary, particularly when the encroachment case of 2007 had remained in abeyance for over a decade. Emphasising the role of the institution, Justice Panigrahi described the school as an “educational lifeline” for the locality, noting that it has been imparting education for over 30 years, including free education to 10% students in compliance with the RTE Act.

Quashing the encroachment case of 2007, Justice Panigrahi directed the sub-collector of Ganjam and the Konisi tehsildar to decide the alienation case of 1992 expeditiously, adding, if the file is untraceable, authorities were asked to reconstruct the case from available records and pass a reasoned order within three months.

Until then, the school shall not be evicted. Even in case of an adverse decision, it must be given at least six months to vacate. The court cautioned the state not to “mechanically wield the axe of eviction” at the cost of children’s education.

The judgment was delivered on Jan 22 on a petition filed by the private school, which has been functioning at Golanthara village since 1992 and caters to over 800 students from Classes 1 to 10. The school alleged that while an alienation case was initiated in 1992 for settlement of one acre of govt land in its favour, the matter remained undecided as official records went “missing”.

The state authorities contended that neither the alienation case nor the encroachment proceeding was traceable in official files and claimed the school was occupying gochar (grazing) land as well as land belonging to a govt high school. The court, however, took note of a 2009 order of the tehsildar, which recorded that the alienation file had been requisitioned from the sub-collector but not received, leading to deferment of the encroachment action.

Rejecting the state’s blanket stand that no private entity can ever be settled on gochar (grazing) land, the court noted that govt policies do permit allotment for public purposes like schools, subject to stringent procedures.