Supreme Court: paying property tax shows possession, not title, in an execution-resistance dispute

The Supreme Court has held that payment of property tax, by itself, shows only possession and not title, in a decades-long dispute over a plot in Bengaluru fought under Order XXI, Rules 97 to 101 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC). In 1987, Kanniah Naidu sued Srikanta Rao for title and possession of the plot and obtained a decree based on a photocopy of a 1972 land grant (Hakkupatra) that Rao did not seriously contest. When Naidu sought delivery of possession in execution, a third party, Balakrishna, who was not a party to that suit, resisted under Order XXI, Rules 97 to 101 CPC, claiming he held the original Hakkupatra for the same plot and had built a house and shops on it.

The executing court and the Karnataka High Court rejected his claim, relying on tax receipts filed by Naidu from 1984-85 and 1985-86 and treating a later tax receipt filed by Balakrishna's son as showing the Hakkupatra had never been acted upon. Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva set aside both orders, holding that sporadic tax payments can at best indicate possession, not ownership, and cannot outweigh an original title document produced in evidence. Since Balakrishna's son had produced the original Hakkupatra, while Naidu relied only on an unmarked photocopy, the Court declared Balakrishna's legal representatives the lawful owners and possessors of the site.