Fictitious Or Non-Genuine Revenue Entries Cannot Confer Adhivasi Rights Under UP Zamindari Abolition Act: Allahabad High Court

"The basic ingredient to prove adverse possession i.e. nec vi nec clam and nec precario are absolutely missing." Allahabad High Court, in a significant ruling, held that revenue entries which are non-genuine, struck off, or recorded merely in the remarks column cannot confer Adhivasi or Sirdar rights upon an individual under the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1951.

A single-judge bench of Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery observed that a claim for adverse possession cannot be sustained when the entry itself reflects permissive possession, such as that of a sub-tenant cultivating land on a crop-sharing basis.

The dispute, which remained pending before the High Court for over four decades, arose from objections filed under Section 9A(2) of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953. The contesting respondents claimed Adhivasi and Sirdar rights over specific plots of land based on certain old revenue entries, challenging the basic year entries recorded in the name of the petitioner's predecessors. The Consolidation Officer and the Settlement Officer of Consolidation concurrently rejected the respondents' claims, finding the entries to be non-genuine and discontinuous. However, the Deputy Director of Consolidation partially allowed their revision petitions, prompting the present writ petition by the original tenure holders.

The primary question before the court was whether entries recorded in the remark column as a sub-tenant and subsequently struck off from revenue records could legally confer Adhivasi or Sirdar rights under Section 20 of the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1951. The court was also called upon to determine whether such discontinuous, permissive entries could satisfy the stringent legal requirements needed to establish a claim of adverse possession.

Revisional Authority Ignored Break In Possession

The High Court strongly criticized the Deputy Director of Consolidation for lightly interfering with the concurrent findings of the lower consolidation authorities. The bench noted that the revisional authority failed to consider a crucial factual finding that the contesting respondent's name was completely absent from the revenue records for more than a decade before the consolidation proceedings commenced. The court emphasized that without continuous possession, the fundamental claim of the respondents collapsed entirely.

Continuous Hostile Possession Mandatory

Delving into the doctrine of adverse possession, the court stated that the indispensable ingredient of hostile possession continuing for more than 12 years was glaringly absent in the present matter. The bench observed that a finding returned by the revisional court based on isolated revenue entries from specific years was inherently erroneous. The court noted that these scattered entries would mathematically fall short of the continuous time requirement necessary to extinguish the title of the original owner.

Permissive Cultivation Is Not Adverse Possession

The court placed significant weight on the specific nature of the revenue entries relied upon by the respondents. The records indicated that the respondents were merely entered as 'sikmi tenants' (sub-tenants) with a specific notation of 'Batai Nisfi', which denotes a crop-sharing arrangement. The bench categorically ruled that the "entry of ‘sikmi tenant’ with a note of Batai Nisfi would also become relevant that it was a permissive possession and not an adverse possession."

"Fraud and forgery rob a document of all its legal effect and cannot found a claim to possessory title."

Fictitious Entries Cannot Create Statutory Rights

Addressing the claim of Adhivasi rights, the court relied upon landmark Supreme Court precedents, including Bachan vs. Kankar and Chandrika Prasad vs. Pullo, to clarify the evidentiary value of revenue documents. Justice Shamshery reiterated that an entry must be made under the strict provisions of law to enable a person to obtain statutory rights. The court observed that entries which are not genuine, or are surreptitiously introduced into the remark column and later struck off, are legally void and utterly useless for conferring title.

Revisional Order Passed On Assumptions

The High Court found that the Deputy Director of Consolidation had proceeded on unfounded assumptions regarding a supposed partition or contract to justify the irregular 'sikmi' entries. The bench held that declaring the respondents as Adhivasi and Sirdar in a cursory manner, without deliberating on the legality and manner of the entries, was a fatal error in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction under Section 48 of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953.

The High Court allowed the writ petition and set aside the impugned revisional orders of the Deputy Director of Consolidation dated October 26, 1971, and September 17, 1982. The court upheld the initial judgments passed by the Consolidation Officer and the Settlement Officer of Consolidation, thereby permanently protecting the possessory and title rights of the original recorded tenure holders.

Date of Decision: 02 April 2026