The Supreme Court recently upheld the decision of the Telangana High Court, upholding the title of successors of Ryot Cultivators over the “Paigah lands” in Hydernagar, Telangana.
The bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal dismissed the claim of title raised by rival claimants/appellants, including M/s Trinity Infraventures Ltd, on the ground that the land was a Mathruka property of the late Nawab Khurshid Jah, who was granted a Paigah by the Nizam of Hyderabad.
The Division Bench of the Telangana High Court in 2019 had ruled that the appellants had failed to establish that the land in Hydernagar village is the Mathruka property of Khurshid Jah Paigah, from whom they were claiming title under a preliminary decree passed by the High Court of Hyderabad in 1963.
The said preliminary decree was passed by the Single Judge of the High Court while sitting as a Trial Judge, in a suit for partition between the family members of Kurshid Jah, on the basis of a compromise entered into between some of the parties to the suit. It was the case of the appellants that the court in its preliminary decree for partition had ruled that the lands in Hydernagar are Mathruka property.