SC bar on collectors on intestate assets

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stopped governments from taking over private properties, including those belonging to Hindu religious and charitable institutions, through adjudications by collectors if the owners of these assets had no heirs and died without executing wills.

In a significant ruling, a bench of Justices N V Ramana and D Y Chandrachud barred collectors from taking up adjudication of title over any property, which fell squarely within the domain of civil courts.

"To allow administrative authorities of the state — including the collector — to adjudicate upon matters of title involving civil disputes would be destructive of the rule of law. The collector is an officer of the state... An adjudicatory function could not have been arrogated to himself by the collector. Adjudication on titles must follow recourse to the ordinary civil jurisdiction of a court of competent jurisdiction under Section 9 of Code of Civil Procedure," said Justice Chandrachud, writing the judgement for the bench.

This ruling saved assets of two Haridwar-based religious institutions — Kutchi Lal Rameshwar Ashram Trust Evam Anna Kshetra Trust and another — from being taken over by the Uttarakhand government after the collector initiated proceedings under Section 29 of the Hindu Succession Act.

Anna Kshetra Trust, set up in 1955 by Swamy Udhav Das ji Maharaj, has vast property at Haridwar which is being used for charitable purposes, including arranging for stay of pilgrims and saints who visit the holy city.

It also runs a Sanskrit Vidyalaya as well as a dispensary. Head of a neighbouring religious institution complained to the Haridwar collector in 2001 that the owner of the property has died intestate and left behind no heir and that the property, thus got vested in the state government under Section 29 of the Hindu Succession Act, which provides — "If an intestate has left no heir qualified to succeed his or her property in accordance with the provisions of this Act, such property shall devolve on the government and the government shall take the property subject to all the obligations and liabilities to which an heir would have been subject."