CHARACTERISING L TERISING LAND AND PROPER AND AND PROPERTY RELATED LITIGATION AT THE DELHI HIGH COURT

Abstract

There are three common conjectures regarding land and property related litigations in India. Firstly, it forms a large proportion of the case load in Indian courts. Secondly, the quality of property records is to be blamed for the large volume and length of the litigations. Thirdly, the amount of case load is compounded due to the complexity created by the multitude of laws that govern land and property. Additionally, the government is considered the largest litigant in such disputes. This paper presents a novel data-set of case-level data from the Delhi High Court to test these conjectures. It answers important questions regarding the volume and typologies of such disputes and the typologies of litigants. At the Delhi High Court, land and property disputes constitute 17% of all litigations. In these cases, the largest proportion of litigation is between private parties. The Union Government is the petitioner (or appellant) in 2% of such litigation but is the respondent in more than 18% of cases. Tenancy and land acquisition matters are the most common types of litigation. Lastly, approximately 14% of property litigation is related to property records.