Bhubaneswar: Ending a 43-year-old dispute, the Board of Revenue, Odisha, has rejected a private claim over 62.72 acres of govt land worth more than Rs 800 crore at Tarol in Tangi-Choudwar tehsil under Cuttack Municipal Corporation, upholding the state’s ownership of the property.Satyabrata Sahu, member of the Board of Revenue, dismissed the revision petition filed by private claimants under Section 38-B of the Odisha Estates Abolition Act, 1951. The order, passed on Nov 3, directed the Tangi-Choudwar tehsildar to retain the land in govt khata as “Abada jogya anabadi”.The dispute dates back to 1983, when the Tangi-Choudwar tehsildar initiated proceedings for recovery of the land. The litigation travelled through different revenue forums and Orissa high court before the present revision petition was filed in 2022 following a high court order. The board upheld the 1997 order of the Sadar sub-collector and 2006 order of the additional district magistrate, Cuttack.The claimants traced their rights to an alleged lease executed in 1945 in favour of Nihal Chand Agarwal for setting up a jute mill. The land had belonged to former intermediary Kali Krishna alias Kalikinkar Sarkar, whose widow, Chandan Bilasini Dasi, was subsequently appointed administrator of his estate.The board, however, held that under Sarkar’s 1905 will, Dasi had only restricted rights to enjoy the property and was barred from transferring it. Therefore, she could not create permanent, heritable and transferable rights in favour of the lessee. It also noted that the petitioners did not produce the original lease deed or supporting rent receipts.The order said the land vested absolutely in the state govt, free from encumbrances, when the intermediary estate was abolished on May 1, 1954. It rejected the claim that the petitioners were deemed tenants under Section 8(1) of the OEA Act, saying there was no evidence that the lessee was cultivating or occupying the land as a tenant immediately before vesting.A field verification cited in the order found that parts of the land are now occupied by a settlement housing hundreds of families, a temple and industrial units, besides Idco roads and common toilets. Other portions remain vacant. The board found no evidence of possession by the petitioners, either through agricultural activity or continuation of the jute mill for which the 1945 lease was purportedly granted.The board also rejected reliance on settlement and consolidation records, and rent receipts to establish ownership. It said such revenue records served fiscal purposes and could not, by themselves, create title. Similarly, earlier ceiling and land acquisition proceedings based on disputed revenue entries could not establish private ownership over the land.The order noted that settlement records carrying private names were published in 1973 and consolidation records in 1990, but said these entries could not override govt’s title to land that had already vested in the state.Dismissing the revision petition, the board found no legal infirmity in the earlier orders of the Sadar sub-collector and additional district magistrate.