Partly allowed

Rakesh Acharya Major and Ors. v. Board of Revenue U.P. Lucknow and Ors.

Allahabad HC22 Apr 2024A227/12390/2016

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The High Court allowed a writ petition quashing a revisional order passed without summoning the court record below. Relying on precedents, the court held that obtaining the record is mandatory for revision under relevant land revenue statutes, resulting in the order's quashing and remand to the authority.

What did the court decide?

The revisional order dated 08.02.2016 is quashed as it was passed without summoning the record. The matter is remanded to the revisional authority to decide the issue relating to Gata no. 223 after su

Rakesh Acharya Major and Ors. Vs Board of Revenue U.P… — Land Acquisition | Allahabad HC (2024)

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Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC-LKO:31194

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Court No. - 18

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Case :- MATTERS UNDER ARTICLE 227 No. - 12390 of 2016

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Petitioner :- Rakesh Acharya Major And Ors. Respondent :- Board Of Revenue U.P. Lucknow And Ors. Counsel for Petitioner :- Mohammad Aslam Khan,Subhas Chandra Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Adnan Ahmad,Karunakar Srivastava,Mohd. Waris Farooqui,Santosh Kumar Tripathi

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Hon'ble Manish Kumar,J.

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The present writ petition has been preferred for quashing of the impugned revisional order dated 08.02.2016 passed by respondent no. 1 i.e. Board of Revenue, U.P Lucknow preferred by private respondents against the appellate order dated 25.06.2015.

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Learned counsel for petitioner has submitted that the revision has been allowed without calling for record of the Court below whereas it has been mentioned in the impugned revisional order that 'after the perusal of the records' though the records were never summoned.

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It is further submitted that in the impugned revisional order, in the end it has been observed that that the lower court record shall be returned. In support of his submission, learned counsel for petitioner has relied upon questionnaire received from the ofÏce of the Tehsildar whether the record of this case has ever been sent to the Court of Board of Revenue, it was replied 'No'. A copy of the questionnaire has been enclosed as Annexure No. 7 to the present writ petition.

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It is further submitted that the word 'may' used in the Section 219 of the U.P Land Revenue Act, 1901 has been interpreted by this Court while interpreting Section 333 of the Uttar Pradesh Zamidari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950 (hereinafter referred as Act, 1950), which is also having the same language as it has been mentioned in Section 219 of the Land Revenue Act, 1901 (hereinafter referred as Act, 1901).

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For convenience, Section 219 of the U.P. Land Revenue Act, 1901 and Section 333 of the U.P.Z.A & L.R. Act, 1950 has been quoted hereinbelow:-

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'Section 219 of U.P. Land Revenue Act, 1901

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Revision(1) The Board or the Commissioner or the Additional Commissioner or the Collector or the Record OfÏcer, or the Settlement OfÏcer, may call for tire record of any case decided or proceeding held by any revenue Court subordinate to him in which no appeal lies or where an appeal lies but has not been preferred, for the purpose of satisfying himself as to tire legality or propriety of the order passed or proceeding held and if such subordinate revenue Court appears to have -

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(a) exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or

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(b) failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or

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(c) acted in the exercise of jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity, the Board or the Commissioner or the Additional Commissioner or the Collector or the Record OfÏcer, or tire Settlement OfÏcer, as tire case may be, pass such order in the case as he thinks fit.

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Section 333 of the U.P.Z.A & L.R Act, 1950

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Power to call for cases- (1) The Board or the Commissioner or the Additional Commissioner may call for the record of any suit or proceeding [other than proceeding under sub-section (4-A) of Section 198] decided by any court subordinate to him in which appeal lies or where an appeal lies but has not been preferred, for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the legality or propriety of any order passed in such suit or proceeding and if such subordinate court appears to have;

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(a) exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law; or

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(b) failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or

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(c) acted in the exercise of jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity;

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the Board or the Commissioner or the Additional Commissioner, as the case may be, may pass such order in the case as he thinks fit.'

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It is almost verbatim the same and the word 'may' has been interpreted by this Court in its judgment dated 23.01.1991 in the case of 'Gunai versus Gram Sabha and others' and held that the word 'may' is mandatory in nature and not directory and quash the order passed in the revision and remand the matter to hear it afresh.

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On the other hand, learned counsel for respondent no. 4 has submitted that though it has been mentioned in the impugned revisional order that the records were seen, but the records were never called and it has wrongly been mentioned in the impugned revisional order and at the

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same time, learned counsel for respondent no. 4 has submitted that the record was not required to be summoned while deciding the revision.

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It is further submitted that in the appeal, the petitioner had claimed the relief only for gata no. 713, area 3.71 acres and 223, area 2.63 acres and out of this total area, the petitioner had claimed for mutation of his name for the area 1.59 acres.

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It is further submitted that the petitioner had also filed a suit under Section 229 B of Act, 1950 in the year 2016 for the land of gata no. 713, area 3.71 acres and the said suit was subsequently withdrawn by the petitioner as dismissed as withdrawn without taking any further liberty to challenge or filing a fresh of the same meaning thereby that as far as the rights of the petitioner on gata no. 713 has attained finality by the appellate order dated 22.06.2015.

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After hearing learned counsel for parties and going through the records of the case and as per the admitted case of the respondents also that the record of the court below was never summoned while deciding the revision under Section 219 of the Act, 1950 which is mandatory prior to adjudicating the revision as per the law settled by this Court in the case of Gunai versus Gram Sabha and other (supra) wherein this Court while interpreting Section 333 of the Act, 1950, which also deals with revision having pari materia and akin provision to Section 219 of the Act, 1901 under which revision was preferred in the present case. The provisions have already been quoted above and from the perusal of the same, the language or the provisions are almost verbatim the same and the word 'may' which has already been interpreted in the case of Gunai versus Gram Sabha and other (supra), the same is applicable in the present case meaning hereby that the revisional court while deciding the revision under Section 219 of Act, 1901, the Court must summon the record of the court below while adjudicating the revision which is mandatory as per the law laid down by this Court which has not been disputed either by learned counsel for respondent no. 4 and the learned State Counsel.

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In view of the discussion made hereinabove, the present writ petition is allowed to the extent that the revisional order is quashed and the matter is remanded to the revisional authority to restore the same to its original number and decide the same as it relates to gata no. 223, area 2.63 acres after summoning the record as far as gata no. 713, the matter has already attained finality as

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discussed above.

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In view of the above, the writ petition is partly allowed.

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The impugned order dated 08.02.2016 is quashed relating to Gata no. 223.

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On the joint request of learned counsel for petitioner and the private respondents for issuing direction to the respondent no. 1 to decide the revision within stipulated time as this Court may fix, it is expected that an endeavour shall be made by the revisional Court to decide the Revision No. 1746 of 2015 filed by respondent no. 4 expeditiously without granting any unnecessary adjournment to either of the parties.

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Order Date :- 22.4.2024 DiVYa

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Digitally signed by :- DIVYA SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench

Rakesh Acharya Major and Ors. v. Board of Revenue U.P. Lucknow and Ors.

Case brief

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Rakesh Acharya Major and Ors. v. Board of Revenue U.P. Lucknow and Ors.

Case brief

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