142 acres assigned to SC/ST farmers in 1960s — now they've lost it all

In the 1960s, the government gave 142 acres to landless SC/ST families. Last week, the Supreme Court took it all back — and said they don't have to pay a rupee.

The land sat quiet for three decades, the dust undisturbed, the grass growing wild where no plough ever bit. Then Hyderabad grew. What was once scrubland near Manchirevula village became prime real estate. And when the original allottees — landless SC/ST farmers who had never tilled the soil — signed away their rights to a single man in 1991 with a single stroke of the pen, they set in motion a legal chain that would take 32 years to snap shut.

When the government gave land to the landless

In the 1960s, the Andhra Pradesh government assigned about 142 acres of government land near Hyderabad to landless Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families. This was land for cultivation — a lifeline, not an asset to trade. The Special Laoni Rules of 1950 governed these assignments. Rule 15 was clear: you could not transfer the land without the Collector's permission. Rule 16 was clearer still: any transfer made without that permission was void. Rule 19 further reinforced the conditions of the grant, binding the assignees to the land's agricultural purpose.

For nearly three decades, the land remained largely unused, its silence broken only by the wind. The assignees did not farm it. They held the dusty pattas (title documents) but did not possess the land in any meaningful way. Then Hyderabad's urban sprawl reached Manchirevula.

The power of attorney that changed everything

In 1991, every single assignee executed a general power of attorney in favour of one M.A. Baksh. Baksh began selling the land as residential plots. The government discovered this and issued a show cause notice — a formal notice asking why the land should not be taken back — proposing cancellation of the assignments.

What followed was a legal war fought across three decades, through at least three rounds of litigation, multiple show cause notices, and judgments from the Single Judge and Division Bench of the High Court, all the way to the Supreme Court.

The first show cause notice that failed

The first show cause notice, issued on September 15, 1994, was held unsustainable by the District Revenue Officer of Ranga Reddy. The courtroom fell silent as the order was read. But the District Collector then stepped in, suspending that order on January 3, 1995 through a suo motu revision — a review initiated on his own authority — which the government ratified on January 24, 1996. The High Court set aside the Collector's revision on September 1, 1997. The matter reached the Supreme Court in Govt. of A.P. v. Gudepu Sailoo, where on April 28, 2000 the court partly allowed the State's appeal and sent the case back to the Collector for fresh consideration.

The Joint Collector of Ranga Reddy ordered resumption on December 22, 2001. The High Court set that aside too on April 4, 2002, ruling the Joint Collector had no jurisdiction. The District Collector of Ranga Reddy ordered resumption again on March 15, 2003. The High Court set that aside as well on April 21, 2006 — but this time, the court gave the government liberty to start fresh proceedings. The file, thick with orders and counter-orders, was not yet closed.

The second show cause notice that stuck

In 2006, the government issued a second show cause notice. This time, the grounds were different. The first notice had been about violations of the Laoni Rules. The second notice invoked the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 — a law specifically designed to stop the transfer of land given to SC/ST families. Section 3 of the Act declared any transfer of assigned land void. Section 4 empowered the government to resume such land summarily.

The Deputy Collector or Mandal Revenue Officer ordered resumption on January 27, 2007. The Single Judge of the Telangana High Court set this aside on February 5, 2010, holding that the second notice was barred by res judicata (the principle that once a matter has been finally decided by a court, it cannot be re-litigated between the same parties). The assignees thought they had won. The courtroom must have felt the weight of that relief.

They were wrong.

Why the Division Bench reversed

The Division Bench of the Telangana High Court reversed the Single Judge on December 31, 2021. The bench held that the second show cause notice was not barred by res judicata because it raised entirely new grounds — violation of the 1977 Act — that had never been adjudicated in the earlier rounds. The resumption order was upheld.

The assignees appealed to the Supreme Court.

What the Supreme Court decided

A bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J.K. Maheshwari dismissed the appeals on August 1, 2023, in Yadaiah and Anr. v. State of Telangana and Others. The court held that the land was indeed 'assigned land' under the 1977 Act, drawing on definitions from Sections 54, 58, and 58-A of the Telangana Land Revenue Act, 1317 Fasli. The transfers made through the power of attorney were void. The resumption was lawful.

But the most significant part of the judgment was about money.

Why the government does not have to pay compensation

The assignees argued that taking back the land without paying compensation violated Article 300-A of the Constitution (the right against deprivation of property except by authority of law). The Supreme Court rejected this argument with a crucial distinction.

The court held that resumption is a punitive action to take back what the State granted, distinct from acquisition which is a positive deprivation of pre-existing rights. Acquisition is when the state takes property that belongs to someone — that requires compensation under Article 300-A. Resumption is when the state takes back what it granted, because the conditions of the grant were violated. It is a punitive action, not a positive deprivation. The state is simply reclaiming what should never have been transferred in the first place.

The court also clarified the scope of res judicata. Only fundamental determinations — those so vital that the decision cannot stand without them — attract the bar. Collateral or incidental observations do not. Since the first show cause notice had been set aside on grounds unrelated to the 1977 Act, the second notice was perfectly valid. The court cited Gudepu Sailoo and other precedents including Letter sent from Plot No.338, Parvant Nagar v. Collector, G.V.K. Rama Rao v. Bakelite Hylam Employees Co-Op, and S. Santhanam v. State of A.P. to support its reasoning.

What happens to the land now

The Supreme Court declared the 142 acres vested in the State government. Ownership and possessory rights were transferred to the Greyhounds Commando Force — an elite anti-Naxal police unit that now trains on what was once meant for the landless — free from all encumbrances. The court ordered that no court shall entertain any claim regarding this land. Ever. The final quietus of the dispute was absolute.

THE PLAY: If you hold assigned SC/ST land, any transfer — even through a power of attorney — is void, and the government can take it back without paying you a single rupee, no matter how many decades have passed.

The land that was meant to lift families out of poverty ended up enriching no one but the man who held the power of attorney. The assignees, who never farmed it, lost it. The state took it back. And the Greyhounds now train where the landless once held pattas they could not keep — the silence of the uncultivated land replaced by the sound of boots on the same soil.