Colonial-era land disputes still haunt courts decades after independence: Supreme Court

Published on : 25 Sep 2025, 3:53 am 4 min read

The Supreme Court on Wednesday lamented that even after seventy-eight years of independence, Indian courts are still burdened with resolving disputes rooted in colonial land grants [Divyagnakumari Harisinh Parmar & Ors v. Union of India & Ors] .

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and N Kotiswar Singh made the observation while dismissing appeals filed by descendants of Portuguese-era grantees in Dadra and Nagar Haveli against the Collector’s 1974 decision to rescind agricultural concessions for non-cultivation under the Organizacao Agraria (OA) of 1919.

“ What is perhaps most striking about the instant case is not merely that this Court is called upon to adjudicate a dispute originating over half a century ag