Dragged on: SHC settles property dispute after 34 years of litigation

Litigants did not live to see the judgment

HYDERABABD: The fear among people of taking property disputes to court and the reluctance thereof seems to be based on a rationale. A dispute over the ownership of a 1,000 square yard residential plot in Latifabad, Hyderabad, has taken 34 years for the court to settle but the litigants did not live to see the outcome.

One of the litigants, in whose favour the Sindh High Court (SHC) has ruled, bought the property through a legal transaction. The other litigant had signed an agreement to purchase debris lying on the plot but occupied the property in 1980.

On the SHC's order, Additional Registrar Syed Sabit Ali Shah oversaw on Tuesday the handover of the property to the children of Ishtiaque Ahmed Siddiqui, who had bought the plot in 1983 but got its possession posthumously this week. The dispute was brought to the court in 2001, around 18 years after the matter was first taken to a subordinate court and subsequently an appellate court.

Background

In 1975 the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation's (HMC) predecessor allotted the property to Muhammad Azeem Yousufzai, who later gave its power of attorney to Rafi Ahmeda year. Siddiqui purchased the plot from Rafi in July, 1983.



Meanwhile, the other deceased litigant, Mehboob Khan, claimed having taken over possession of the plot in question in 1980 from Fayyaz Ahmed. After the sale agreement between Rafi and Siddiqui, Khan was the first to file a suit pleading to the court not to dispossess him unless the judgment was given. Siddiqui filed a counter suit in the same court in 1984 which ruled in favour of Khan in 1996.

Siddiqui filed an appeal against the order and while the case was proceeding, the HMC cancelled the original allotment of Yousufzai in July, 2000. However, the following year in March, 2001, the appellate court declared the petitioner, Siddiqui, as the rightful owner of the property.



However, the appellate court's order was never implemented as Khan filed a petition in the SHC in July, 2000 on the basis of cancellation of the allotment. He requested the court to order the HMC to allot the plot in his name.

Judgment

Citing the agreement between Fayyaz and Khan, the SHC, which took around 17 years to decide the matter, observed that the agreement concerned the purchase of debris lying on the said plot. "The appellant [Khan] has no right or title in the plot except through a 'malba' [debris] purchase agreement...to the contrary rights of the respondent Ishtiaque Ahmed been cemented after the registered sale deed transaction," the court stated in its order.



The SHC upheld the 2001 order of the appellate court and directed the additional registrar to oversee handover of the plot to Siddiqui's heirs and submit a compliance report within 15 days.