Mohammad Yamin Ali vs State Of Uttarakhand And Others

Ramesh Ranganathan, CJ

This Appeal is preferred against the order passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ Petition (M/S) No. 605 of 2011 dated 20.05.2019.

Writ Petition (M/S) No. 605 of 2011 was filed by the appellant-writ petitioner to set aside the order passed by the Additional District Judge / Fast Track Court-VI, Dehradun in Land Acquisition Misc. Case No. 152 of 2006 dated 03.03.2011.

Facts, to the limited extent necessary, are that an award was passed by the Land Acquisition Officer for acquisition of 2.99 hectares of the land of the Society for Rs. 54,50,775. Since there was a dispute between the office-bearers, as to who was entitled to receive the said amount, and, since such a dispute regarding apportionment under Section 30 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short 'the 1894 Act') was required to be adjudicated by the Competent Court, the District Magistrate deposited the awarded amount in Court under Section 31 of the 1894 Act.

Against the order passed by the Additional District Judge dated 3.03.2011, permitting Rs. 54,50,775 to be withdrawn by the Society against a security bond of Rs. 60,00,000/-, the appellant-writ petitioner invoked the jurisdiction of this Court and, on the writ petition being dismissed by the order under appeal, he has now invoked our jurisdiction under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Allahabad High Court Rules.

While the writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, Sri Gopal K. Verma, learned counsel for respondent nos. 2 & 3, would contend that, notwithstanding the nomenclature, the writ petition must be held to have been filed only under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, and not under Article 226 thereof; and, therefore, an intra-court Appeal, under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Allahabad High Court Rules, would not lie.

Article 227 of the Constitution of India confers power of judicial superintendence on the High Court over all courts and tribunals throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction. The High Court, under Article 227 of the Constitution, exercises judicial superintendence over orders of courts / tribunals. Even if the submission of Sri S.K. Mandal, learned counsel for the appellant-writ petitioner, is accepted, and it is presumed that the Additional District Judge does not act as a Court while exercising powers under Section 31 of the 1894 Act, the Court of the ADJ would, undoubtedly, be a tribunal as it is required, under Section 31 of the 1894 Act, to adjudicate the rival claims of the parties, and determine to whom, the deposited amount, is required to be paid.

Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the High Court Rules stipulates that an intra-Court Appeal would not lie against orders passed in a writ petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against any order or award of a tribunal made or purported to be made in the exercise or the purported exercise of jurisdiction under any Uttar Pradesh Act or Central Act with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the State List or the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. The jurisdiction exercised by the Additional District Judge is under Section 31 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which is a Central Act.

Reliance placed by Sri S.K. Mandal, learned counsel for the appellant-writ petitioner, on the judgment of the Full Bench of Five Judges of the Allahabad High Court, in The Notified Area Committee and another vs. Sri Ram Singhasan Prasad Kalwaar : AIR 1970 Allahabad 561, is misplaced. In the said judgment, it has been held that an intra-Court Appeal would lie under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Allahabad High Court Rules against the order passed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, since the learned Single Judge exercises original jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

As noted hereinabove, while the appellant-writ petitioner has, no doubt, instituted the proceedings, before the learned Single Judge, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the said proceedings are, in substance, proceeding instituted only under Article 227. It is always open to this Court, notwithstanding the nomenclature under which the writ petition is filed. to examine whether the writ petition is filed under Article 226 or under Article 227 of the Constitution.

We are satisfied that the proceedings instituted by the appellant-writ petitioner in Writ Petition (M/S) No.605 of 2011, though couched as a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is, in effect, a writ petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against which an intra-Court Appeal would not lie.

The Special Appeal is, therefore, dismissed as not maintainable. We make it clear that the order passed by this Court will not disable the appellant from availing such remedies as are available to him in law to question the order passed by the learned Single Judge.