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Judgment
Sunil Kumar Sinha, J.—The appellant/petitioner has filed this appeal against the order dated 31-1-2007 passed in W.P. No. 131/2007 by the learned Single Judge of this Court.
The facts briefly stated are as under:
The appellant/petitioner is a Company incorporated and registered under the Companies Act, 1956. It is engaged in manufacture of Cement at their manufacturing unit situated at Village Arasmeta commonly called as Arasmeta Cement Plant. A demand notice dated 18-10-2005 was issued to the appellant/petitioner by the Addl. Tehsildar, Janjgir-Champa, towards recovery of electricity duty due to the appellant under the C.G. Electricity Duty Act, 1949. This was challenged by the appellant in W.P. No. 6384/2005. The said petition was dismissed by the learned Single Judge of this Court at the motion stage by order dated 19-12-2005 reserving liberty to the appellant in the following terms:
In the circumstance, I am not inclined to entertain this writ petition. It is accordingly dismissed at the stage of admission itself, however, reserving liberty to the petitioners to work out their legal remedies, as provided under the Code.
In pursuance of the aforesaid order, the appellant submitted objection against issuance of Revenue Recovery Certificate (RRC) before the concerned Collector. The said objection was opposed by the Executive Engineer, Electrical Safety & Divisional Electrical Inspector on its maintainability. The Collector without deciding the objection on merits against issuance of RRC, summarily observed that since RRC has been issued by the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, Raipur and the same has been forwarded for recovery to his office as such the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, Raipur, is the Competent Authority to hear and decide the objection of the appellant and accordingly the appellant was directed to put up his objection against the issuance of RRC before the Chief Electrical Inspector. The Collector also ordered to forward the copy of objection preferred by the appellant to the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, Raipur, for adjudication and necessary action. With the above observation, the matter was disposed of and the stay granted in favour of the appellant on 20-1-2006 stand vacated.
The aforesaid order passed by the Collector was challenged by the appellant before the Board of Revenue in Appeal No. 4/A-74/2005-06 u/s 44(1)(e) of the C.G. Land Revenue Code, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as ''the Code, 1959'') but the said appeal was rejected vide order dated 22-11-2006.
It is after all this, the appellant filed the instant Writ Petition No. 131/2007 in which the impugned order dated 31-1-2007 was passed and the learned Single Judge disposed of the said writ petition on the following terms:
In view of the above, I am of the considered opinion that there is no illegality or infirmity in the order impugned disposing of the objection of petitioner and referring matter to the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, for adjudication, which calls for interference by this Court.
In the result, this petition is disposed of with a direction to the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, Raipur, to decide the objection of the petitioner expeditiously after affording an opportunity of hearing to the parties and till then the recovery proceedings against the demand notice/RRC dated 18-10-2005 shall be kept in abeyance.
Mr. Manindra Shrivastava, leaned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant, would submit that this Court, in the earlier writ petition, had directed to avail the legal remedies as provided under the Code, in compliance of which, the aforesaid objection was filed before the Collector and in the facts and circumstances of the case, the Collector would have adjudicated the same on merits and would not have referred to for adjudication to the Chief Electrical Inspector. He would also submit that there was no necessity of sending the matter to the Chief Electrical Inspector for its adjudication.
On the other hand, Mr. Praveen Das, learned Deputy Govt. Advocate, appearing on behalf of the respondents opposed these arguments and supported the order passed by the learned Single Judge.
We have heard learned Counsel for the parties at length and have also perused the records of the writ appeal.
Chapter XI of the Code, 1959 deals in relation to land revenue and the recovery of arrears thereof. Section 145 deals with certified account to be evidence as to arrear and defaulter. Sub-section (1) of Section 145 provides that a statement of account, certified by the Collector or by the Tehsildar shall, for the purpose of this Chapter, be presumed to be correct statement of the arrears payable to Government or its amount, and of the person who is the defaulter until the contrary is proved. Sub-section (2) of Section 145 provides that no notice to defaulter shall be necessary before drawing up the statement referred to in Sub-section (1). Section 146 is about notice of demand, which provides that a Tehsildar or Naib Tehsildar may cause of notice of demand to be served on any defaulter before the issue of any process u/s 147 for the recovery of an arrear, which says about coercive methods to be adopted for recovery of arrears of land revenue.
In the present case, the demand notice was issued by the Tehsildar u/s 146 of the Code of 1959 showing the amount of Rs. 57,86,892/- as the arrears of land revenue against the appellant learned Counsel for the appellant has not contended that it was the uncertified amount by the Collector. He has also not challenged the procedural aspect adopted for recovery of such amount but his contention was that the appellant was not liable to pay the amount demanded by the Chief Electrical Inspector in the impugned notice of demand and the determination of liability by the said authority was totally erroneous. If the liability itself has been denied on account of errors committed by the authority who determined the amount for certification before the Collector for issuance of a demand notice u/s 146 of the Code of 1959, then the appropriate forum for correction of error would be the authority itself who allegedly committed mistake and not that the authority who certified the account for the purpose of recovery as the arrears of land revenue. The words used like "until the contrary is proved" in Sub-section (1) of Section 145 are clear indication to show that the presumption u/s 145(1) is a rebutable presumption and the mistake occurred can be corrected after proper adjudication by proving contrary to it. It is in these circumstances, the Collector directed the appellant to put up its objection before the Chief Electrical Inspector and get an adjudication in that regard, which was ultimately upheld by the Board of Revenue as also by the learned Single Judge. Moreover, the contents of the order dated 26-9-2006 passed by the Collector would show that the Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant before the Collector himself had submitted that if the Collector was of the opinion that objection should have been filed before the Chief Electrical Inspector, then their objection may be sent to the said authority.
For the foregoing reasons, so far as merits are concerned, we do not find any infirmity or illegality in the impugned order passed by the learned Single Judge.
It is stated that the appellant Company has not approached the Chief Electrical Inspector till date. To avoid further delay and looking to the fact that the demand has been kept in abeyance by the learned Single Judge till the decision of the objection by the Chief Electrical Inspector and further that the demand is of the year 2005, we direct the appellant to approach the Chief Electrical Inspector, Chhattisgarh, Raipur, within a period of 30 days from today, failing which the order of keeping the Demand Notice/RRC dated 18-10-2005 in abeyance shall stand automatically vacated. If the appellant approaches the Chief Electrical Inspector within the said period, the said authority shall be obliged to dispose of the objection as early as possible preferably within a period of six months from the date of appellant''s approaching the said authority along with the certified copy of this order.
With the above modification in the impugned order, the writ appeal stands dismissed.
There shall be no order as to costs.