Patna: A group of shopkeepers at Meena Bazar in Patna has reportedly withdrawn an appeal before the Patna High Court that challenged a 2018 ruling on the market’s legal status, leaving that ruling in place.
A Division Bench of Justice Sudhir Singh and Justice Rajesh Kumar Verma allowed the withdrawal on Wednesday, October 14, and dismissed Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) No. 230 of 2026, along with a connected appeal, LPA No. 536 of 2024, as withdrawn. The brief oral order records only that counsel for the appellants sought permission to withdraw. It does not discuss the merits of the dispute.
The 2018 judgment held that Meena Bazar, unlike the adjoining Patna Market, had not vested in the state and that the Patna Collector had acted illegally in ordering the possession of shops on part of plot No. 262.
What the appeal challenged
The 28 appellants in LPA 230 of 2026, led by Baljinder Singh Arora, had challenged a January 30, 2018 order passed by Justice Prabhat Kumar Jha in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case (CWJC) No. 1760 of 2016.
That order dismissed two writ petitions, one filed by the State of Bihar and the other by a group of shopkeepers. Both had challenged a January 2014 decision of the Bihar Land Tribunal, which set aside a March 2012 order of the Patna Collector seeking possession of shops on part of plot No. 262.
The Collector had held that no record showed Meena Bazar was demarcated separately from Patna Market. The tribunal, and later the High Court, disagreed, relying on a Full Bench judgment delivered 34 years earlier.
According to a notice posted in May on the shopkeepers’ association website, the appeal was filed with a delay of 2,937 days, and the court had issued notice to the Imam family respondents on the question of limitation.
Dispute dates back to zamindari abolition
Patna Market and Meena Bazar stand on adjoining land once held by the late Syed Haider Imam. Under the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950, the estates of former zamindars, including the hats and bazars they held, vested in the state after notifications issued in the mid-1950s.
On November 16, 1984, a Full Bench of the Patna High Court comprising Justices S.K. Jha, S.K. Choudhuri and Uday Sinha held that Patna Market was a bazar and had vested in the state. In paragraph 20 of the judgment, the court referred to a separate bazar adjacent to it, within the compound of the former proprietor and popularly known as Meena Bazar.
The Full Bench observed that Meena Bazar had been established long after zamindari vesting. Recording a concession by the state’s Additional Advocate General, it laid down that although Patna Market had vested in the state, Meena Bazar had not. The judgment is reported as 1985 PLJR 66.
The former proprietors appealed against the vesting of Patna Market. The Supreme Court dismissed those appeals on April 25, 1996, upholding the Full Bench. The Supreme Court’s published judgment does not refer to Meena Bazar.
In 2018, the High Court relied on paragraph 20 to hold that the shops known as Meena Bazar, including those standing on part of plot No. 262, could not be treated as vested in the state. It said the Collector had acted illegally in ordering otherwise and that the tribunal had rightly set that order aside.
Imam family’s lawyer says withdrawal settles dispute
Shreyash Goyal, an advocate at the Patna High Court who appeared for Syed Abid Imam, a son of Syed Haider Imam and a respondent in both appeals, said the withdrawal settled the matter. According to Goyal, the question of whether Meena Bazar is the private property of the Imam family is no longer in dispute, and its shopkeepers are tenants of the family.
Goyal said Syed Haider Imam (1899-1973), a barrister who was a member of the Central Assembly in the 1940s, laid the foundation of Patna Market in 1947 on the plot where he also had his private house, and later built Meena Bazar on his private land on the same plot.
He said tenants continued to pay rent to the family after the 1984 and 2018 rulings. In recent years, Goyal alleged, some tenants began to argue that Meena Bazar had vested in the state along with Patna Market, with the aim of stopping rent payments, and made statements against family members at press conferences and in media interviews. PatnaPress has not independently verified these claims.
Goyal also objected to the name of the shopkeepers’ body. Ministry of Corporate Affairs records show it was incorporated on November 24, 2021 as Meena Bazar (Patna Market) Dukaandaar Association, while its website presents it as the Patna Market Dukaandaar Association. Goyal said the name was used to suggest that the two markets are the same.
The shopkeepers’ association
The association’s website says it represents the merchants of Meena Bazar and is active in courts to protect its members’ interests. It lists Baljindar Singh Arora as president, Ekram Sharfuddian Khan as secretary, Mehtab Alam as joint secretary and Mujeebur Rahman Arshad as treasurer.
Arora and Arshad are among the appellants in LPA 230 of 2026. Mehtab Alam was the appellant in the connected LPA 536 of 2024, and was also among the shopkeepers whose writ petition was dismissed in 2018.
PatnaPress could not contact the association for its response to the claims made by the Imam family’s counsel. This report will be updated if a response comes.
