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Delhi HC restores 18 year old case slaps fine on petitioner The Delhi High Court restored a 18-year old case, which was dismissed as the petitioners did not bother to pursue it, and slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on them.
Imposing the fine on the petitioner, who failed to make timely appearances in an ancestral property case, Justice G S Sistani restored the original writ petition which was filed in 1992, and allowed the continuation of the stay granted by the court in 1994 which restrains the ASI from acquiring the family property.
The Court came up heavily on the petitioners for being extremely negligent in pursuing the writ petition and allowed the continuation of the original matter by paying a fine of Rs 20,000. The Court directed the petitioners as well as the respondents DDA, ASI, and others to file a five-page synopsis each by May 25, the next date of hearing.
The case pertains to 11 bighas of land in village Sarai Sahajee, Shivalik( Mehrauli) where the Archeological Survey of India(ASI) had put up a sign board inviting the claimants of that land to approach them. One Rati Ram, a resident of that area, filed his claim in the Delhi High Court in 1992 whereby the Court had restrained the ASI to take any coercive action against the land in question.
Rati Ram and his brothers filed a writ petition in the court in 1992 claiming that the land in question was their ancestral land and belonged to him and his family. He asked the court not to allow the ASI to take over it. The Court, however, stopped the ASI from taking any action regarding that land and stayed the acquisition of the land till the outcome of the case in the court.
In 1996, Rati Ram died but the case was pursued by his son Braham Prakash. Later Braham Prakash also passed away in 1998. Since then, the case dragged on as it was put up several times but no one appeared on behalf of the petitioners. The case was dismissed eventually.
The petitioners, the grandsons of Rati Ram, have now filed a petition requesting the court to revive their earlier petition of 1992 and condone the delay in the case. They said they had lost track of the case as the original case files were misplaced.
UNI
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