In a big relief to Reliance company, the Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the trial proceedings in a three-decade-old land dispute between Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) pending before the Additional Senior Civil Judge in Gujarat's Jamnagar.
A Bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B Varale granted interim relief to RIL while hearing its appeal challenging a May 9 judgment of the Gujarat High Court which had allowed BPCL to amend its plaint to seek declaration of title, recovery of possession and mesne profits in respect of land at Moti Khavdi in Jamnagar.
The dispute between BPCL and RIL has its roots in the early 1990s when the Government of Gujarat allotted and acquired over 349 hectares of land at Moti Khavdi for BPCL to establish a crude oil terminal station.The allotment was made partly through government orders in December 1994 and partly through compulsory acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, culminating in consent and regular awards during 1994–1996.
BPCL’s case is that portions of this land, meant for its terminal, were encroached upon by Reliance Petroleum Ltd. (RPL), the predecessor of RIL, which allegedly extended a boundary wall into BPCL’s allotted land.BPCL instituted a civil suit in November 1995 before the Additional Senior Civil Judge at Jamnagar, seeking a permanent injunction restraining Reliance from interfering with its possession or raising construction.
Interim proceedings saw a commissioner appointed to survey the land but the survey could not be completed.Around the same time, the parties recorded minutes of a meeting in December 1995 wherein RPL acknowledged BPCL’s ownership and agreed not to enter the land without BPCL’s written consent.
Yet the main suit continued, with no written statement filed by Reliance for years. Issues were framed only in 2012, nearly seventeen years after the institution of the case.In 2013, BPCL sought to amend its plaint to include a prayer for removal of constructions raised by Reliance on the disputed land. That amendment was allowed in 2014 after which Reliance filed its written statement in 2015.
The State government’s resurvey of land prompted BPCL to file another amendment in 2017 to incorporate new survey numbers, which was also allowed.
Meanwhile, Reliance moved the trial court in 2022 seeking dismissal of the plaint for want of proper court fee. The trial court instead directed BPCL to pay ad valorem fee, treating the reliefs as involving possession of immovable property.A major development occurred in September 2023, when the trial court appointed the District Inspector of Land Records (DILR) to survey the land, after Reliance had secured over 60 adjournments on the issue across decades.
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