The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to correct a decades-old typographical error in a land acquisition notification and the corresponding award after finding that the mistake had wrongly identified one property as another. The Court held that a genuine clerical error should not leave affected parties without a remedy, especially when government records themselves acknowledge the mistake.
Background of the Case
The case arose from a writ petition filed by Rain Basera SRA CHS Limited, a cooperative housing society, seeking correction of a land acquisition notification dated 9 February 1973 and the land acquisition award dated 14 June 1975.
The society argued that while land bearing CTS No. 699 was intended to be acquired for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road project, government records mistakenly mentioned CTS No. 611 because of an error committed during a joint land survey. According to the petitioner, the incorrect CTS number was subsequently repeated in both the acquisition notification and the award.
The petitioner pointed out that CTS No. 611 measures only 438.50 square metres and corresponds to Survey No. 267, whereas the acquired land measured 5,580 square metres and related to CTS No. 699, Survey No. 266. It also submitted that CTS No. 611 is surrounded by other properties and could never have formed part of the road project.
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Authorities Acknowledged the Error
During the proceedings, the petitioner relied on correspondence issued by the City Survey Officer, which expressly admitted that CTS No. 611 had been wrongly recorded instead of CTS No. 699 in both the notification and the acquisition award. The petitioner also highlighted that despite several representations and appeals before revenue authorities, the error remained uncorrected, causing serious hardship in relation to its property records and redevelopment process.
The State Government, through the Additional Government Pleader, also did not dispute that there appeared to be a bona fide mistake in the records. However, it argued that once the acquisition award had been passed, the Land Acquisition Officer had become functus officio, meaning the authority no longer possessed the legal power to alter the award.
Court's Observations
The Division Bench of Justice Shreeram V. Shirsat and Justice Manish Pitale observed that the petitioner could not be left without any remedy merely because the error had continued for several decades.
The Bench noted that the material placed before it clearly showed that the wrong CTS number had been entered due to inadvertence and that the mistake later found its way into the official notification as well as the acquisition award.
The Court observed:
“The Petitioner cannot be left remediless… it appears to be a genuine and bona-fide mistake which has occurred purely on account of inadvertence or due to oversight.”
The judges further held that while exercising powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, the High Court could correct such an obvious clerical error where the concerned authorities were otherwise unable to do so after passing the award.
The Bench also relied on its earlier decision in Smt. Sushila Shivram Patil v. Deputy Collector (Land Acquisition), where similar directions had been issued for correction of a clerical error in a land acquisition award after recognising that affected landowners should not be denied relief merely because of procedural limitations.
Court's Decision
Allowing the writ petition, the Bombay High Court directed the State Government to replace CTS No. 611 with CTS No. 699 in the land acquisition notification dated 9 February 1973.
The Court also directed the Deputy Collector (Land Acquisition) to make the identical correction in the acquisition award dated 14 June 1975. Additionally, it ordered the City Survey authorities to delete the revenue entry dated 22 July 1997 from the Property Register Card and other revenue records relating to CTS No. 611.
The Court directed that all these corrections be completed within six weeks from receipt of its order, after which the writ petition was disposed of.
Case Details:
Case Title: Rain Basera SRA CHS Limited v. The State of Maharashtra and Others
Case Number: Writ Petition No. 2304 of 2026
Judge: Justice Shreeram V. Shirsat and Justice Manish Pitale
Decision Date: 7 July 2026
