Air force has the right to evict anyone invading its land: Bombay HC

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has held that the air force has the right to evict anyone encroaching upon its land and the eviction cannot be challenged by subsequent possessors of the land with an aim to exploit it for personal benefit. 

The court was hearing a petition by a person who is currently in possession of a plot of land in Kondhwa at Pune which the air force had acquired from the original owner in 1955 and had paid him compensation for it.

However, the owner then sold the land to another person and the land charged hands twice before it came in possession of the current owner/petitioner.

While hearing the writ petition filed by Prashant Bansal, a businessman/agriculturist who claimed that he had come in possession of the plot in 2008 and had done construction on the property with permission of the gram panchayat in 2009. 

However, in 2010 the air force had issued an eviction notice in the name of the previous possessor of the plot. Bansal claimed that as he was now in lawful possession of the plot, the notice should have been in his name and not the previous owner. 

However, the counsel for the air force argued that the previous owner had failed to prove his right to possess the property in a suit and a subsequent appeal. 

After hearing all submissions, the bench rejected the petitioners plea and further upheld the previous orders in the suit and dismissed the petition.