Gadde Ratnam, Vs The A.P. Schedule Castes Co-operative

The petitioners are the owners and possessors of different extents of lands, purchased by them through Registered Sale Deeds, the details of which are as follows:

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Petitioner No.1, vide Registered Sale Deed No.170/2009, dated 23.08.2008, purchased an extent of Ac.0-99 cents, situated in Sy.No.1394/1B8R of Tikkavarappadu village. Petitioner No.2, vide Registered Sale Deed No.169/2009, dated 23.08.2008, possessed an extent of Ac.0-99 cents, situated in Sy.No.1394/1B-1 of Tikkavarappadu village. Petitioner No.3, vide Registered Sale Deeds dated 28.08.2008, purchased an extent of Ac.0-99 cents in sy.No.1394/1B-5, Ac.1-04 cents in Sy.No.1394/1B-9 and Ac.1-04 cents in Sy.No.1394/1B-12 of Tikkavarappadu village.

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The petitioners’ vendors purchased the said extents originally from D.Murali Krishna Reddy under Registered Sale Deeds dated 09.02.1999 bearing Document Nos.178/99, 167/99, 168/99, 174/99 and 175/99. The petitioners after purchase of the said lands applied for Pattadar Passbooks and Title Deeds. After due verification, 4^th respondent recommended to the 3^rd respondent for issuance of Title Deeds. However, to the petitioners utter surprise, the 3^rd respondent through letter dated 18.05.2010 directed the 4^th respondent / Tahsildar to follow the instructions of the 2^nd respondent for restoration of the land in question to the original beneficiaries. Further, the 2^nd respondent vide letter dated 22.04.2010 requested the 3^rd respondent to restore the lands to the original beneficiaries on the premise that the

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beneficiaries who purchased the lands in question under land purchase scheme cannot alienate the same, though they have repaid the entire amount to the 2^nd respondent Society. As steps have been taken for restoring the land from the petitioners, they filed the present Writ Petition challenging the Circular dated 01.08.2005 and the communication of the 2^nd and 3^rd respondents, on various grounds.

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Learned counsel for the petitioners made submissions, inter alia, to the effect that the Circular dated 01.08.2005 has no application since the land was alienated on payment of Market Value, without any restriction. He submits that no conditions were incorporated in the sale deeds in respect of the lands which were initially sold to the vendor’s vendor of the petitioners. He further submits that in the absence of any specific recitals in the sale deeds, no fresh conditions by way of executive instructions, prohibiting the sale of lands can be imposed. The learned counsel also relied on the decisions in Parvathaneni Rambabu Vs State of Andhra Pradesh¹ and Sikhakolli Srinivasa Rao Vs State of A.P., and others² and seeks to allow the Writ Petition as prayed for.

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On the other hand, learned standing counsel for the 2^nd respondent Corporation made submissions to impress upon the Court that there is no illegality or infringement of rights of the petitioners and the impugned Circular as also the proceedings issued by the respondents are in accordance with law. He submits that the subject matter lands alienated under land purchase

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1 2023 SCC OnLine AP 2998

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2 WP No.2214 of 2023, dt.04.09.2023 APHC

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scheme should not be sold to anybody, though the entire loan amount was paid or waived by the Government. He submits that the decisions relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioners are not applicable to the facts of the case, that the Writ Petition is liable to be dismissed.

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This Court has considered the submissions made and perused the material on record.

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At the outset, it may be appropriate to state that from a perusal of the Ex.P10 (Land purchase scheme guidelines), it is discernable that no condition was incorporated in the guidelines with regard to alienation of the land which was purchased under the Government scheme / scheme formulated by the 2^nd respondent. No counter affidavit was filed and in fact, a copy of the guidelines placed before this Court, is with regard to “Implementation Guidelines on Purchase of Agriculture Land Scheme for SC Landless Women Agriculture Labourers”, and appears to be issued after the bifurcation of the State of Andhra Pradesh into the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh in the year 2014. The said guidelines were formulated on 16.12.2016 prior to sale transactions in question and the same are, therefore, not applicable. Be that as it may.

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In Parvathaneni Rambabu case (1 supra) a learned Judge of this court was dealing with a matter, the facts of which are more or less similar to the case on hand. In the said Writ Petition, the vendors of the petitioners therein obtained loans and purchased the Writ Petition schedule property under a scheme evolved by the District Schedule Caste Service Cooperative

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Society. According to the scheme, the loans have to be repaid by the beneficiaries by way of installments. By virtue of the waiver of the loans, the sale deeds were released in favour of the petitioners’ vendors and they in turn, sold the lands in favour of the petitioners. Learned Judge after examining the scope of the scheme and the relevant guidelines at Para No.20 held that when once the Government proposed to alienate the land by executing a deed of conveyance, collecting registration fee and stamp duty, it is an outright sale of the property by executing deed of conveyance and therefore, it is only a sale of property and the original pattadar or his / her legal heirs are entitled to alienate the property, as no such restriction was imposed prohibiting alienation of the property.

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In Writ Petition No.2214 of 2023 (2 supra) , this Court had an occasion to examine the matter with regard to Writ Petition schedule property kept in the prohibitory category list under Section 22-A(1) of the Registration Act. Originally, one Smt. Bhimavarapu Swarajyamma @ Sarojanamma, was the absolute owner, possessor and enjoyer of the Writ Petition schedule property. She sold the said property through Registered Sale Deed dated 12.09.2011. In the Writ Petition, it was argued that inclusion of the subject matter property therein in the prohibited category list was illegal. After considering the submissions made on both sides, this Court upheld contentions in favour of the petitioner, after examining the relevant material on record. Reliance was placed on the decisions of earlier Division Benches and the Writ Petition was allowed. The relevant position of the order reads as follows:

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“5. ........ The issue with regard to the purchase of land with loan sanctioned by the Corporation-4^th respondent under the land purchase scheme introduced by the Government of Andhra Pradesh fell for consideration before a Division Bench of the erstwhile High Court of Andhra Pradesh in W.A.No.1052 of 2012 and batch. In its common order, the Hon’ble Division Bench referring to the orders of another Division Bench, dated 15.02.2012, in W.A.No.185; 186 and 187 of 2012 upholding the orders of the learned single Judge in W.P.No.29527 of 2012 that once the loan is discharged, the owners of the land acquire right to claim the original document of title and no fetters can be imposed on such a right, inter alia held as follows:

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“8. A perusal of the guidelines of the scheme, which are relied upon by the appellants' counsel, does not contain any clause prohibiting alienation of the land provided under the scheme. It is not even the case of respondent Nos.4 and 5 that there is any prohibition imposed subsequent to the formulation of the scheme. If the object of the scheme is to provide agricultural land to the beneficiaries with an intention to provide permanent income generating asset, the authorities ought to have taken steps at the time of formulating the scheme itself by mentioning some clauses of prohibition of alienation of the lands provided under the scheme. Admittedly there is no such condition of prohibition imposed even by this date. In the absence of such prohibition, the beneficiaries are entitled to sell the land. Hence, we are unable to accept the said contention of the learned counsel for respondent Nos.4 and 5- appellants herein.

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In the above circumstances, we are of the considered view that the learned single Judge, while following the orders of the Division Bench of this Court, has rightly directed respondent No.3- Sub-Registrar to register the documents presented by the petitioners without treating that Section 22-A of the Act applies to the said land. We see no reason to interfere with the impugned orders.”

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It is pertinent to emphasize that except making submissions that the land which was alienated under the scheme by the 2^nd respondent cannot be

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sold, no document / material was filed to substantiate the same. Under the

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said circumstances, the decisions referred to above, in the considered opinion of this Court applies in all fours to the facts of the present case. In view of the same, this Court has no hesitation to hold that the proceedings impugned are not sustainable in law.

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