AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Sashikanta Mishra,J.
Since the facts and questions of law involved in all these writ applications are substantially similar and the matters have been heard analogously, all the writ applications are being disposed of by this common judgment. For the sake of brevity and convenience, however, the facts of W.P.(C) No.3007 of 2025 shall be considered and referred to.
The case of the petitioner, briefly stated, is that the case land was originally leased out by the Government to one Kasinath Naik in W.L.L. Case No.2719/1973, measuring an area of one acre. He was a Scheduled Caste person and after obtaining permission from the Revenue Officer, Bhubaneswar in Revenue Case No.6/1984 on 11.04.1984, he sold an area of Ac. 0.250 decs. to the present opposite party No.7 vide RSD dated 04.07.1984. Opposite Party No.7 sold a portion thereof being Ac.0.062.5 decs. to the Opposite Party No.8 vide RSD dated 24.9.2003. Opposite Party No.8, in turn, sold the said land to the Petitioner vide RSD dated 07.12.2005. Subsequently, Opposite Party No.7 again sold an area of Ac.0.1.25 decs. to the petitioner through his power of attorney holder, Opposite Party No.9 vide RSD dtd.25.6.2004. Yet again, Opposite Party No.7 sold the remaining land to the petitioner vide RSD dated 26.10.2004. Thus, the petitioner acquired the land through three sale deeds and on being delivered possession, became the absolute owner in possession of Ac.0.250 decs.
The genuineness of the lease granted in favour of the original lessee was sought to be verified by the Addl. District Magistrate (A.D.M.) under the OGLS Act. He found the lease being granted properly but remanded the matter to the Tahasildar for fresh inquiry vide order dtd.25.04.1987. Accordingly, W.L.L. Remand Case No.81/1988 was initiated by the Tahasildar, Bhubaneswar, who after making necessary field inquiry through the R.I., passed order on 20.04.1995 holding that the lease granted in favour of the original lessee, Kasinath Naik, is valid. Said order has not been challenged before any forum thereafter.
The petitioner being in possession, continued to pay rent till 2011-2012, when settlement operations began. During the settlement operations, the A.S.O., on consideration of the registered sale deeds executed in favour of the petitioner, directed recording of the land in her name in the Yadast. The Not-Final R.O.R. (Parcha) was accordingly issued. While the petitioner was expecting the land to be finally recorded in her favour, she was surprised to find that ignoring all records as well as the Yadast report, the Asst. Settlement Officer passed an order on 23.08.2013 recording the land in Abadjogya Anabadi Khata. The order was passed on the ground that the land was not used for the purpose for which it was allotted to the lessee.
Under such circumstances, the petitioner preferred revision under Section 15(b) of the OSS Act before the Addl. Commissioner, Addl. Revisional Court No.1, Odisha, Bhubaneswar being registered as O.S.S. Case No.709/2020. The petitioner, in her revision petition narrated all the relevant facts sequentially as also the orders passed by the A.D.M. and the Tahasildar holding the lease valid. However, the revisional court, without proper appreciation of the facts and materials on record dismissed the revision mainly on the ground that the validity of the lease was doubtful. Said order is impugned in the present writ petition.
No counter affidavit has been filed by the State-opposite parties though the State counsel preferred to make oral submissions.
Heard Mr. P.K.Mohanty, learned Senior counsel with Mr. P.Mohanty for the petitioner and Mr. G. Mohanty, learned Standing Counsel for the State.
Mr. Mohanty assails the impugned order by submitting that the revisional authority has acted contrary to the settled position of law that the validity of lease is not within the domain of the authorities under the OSS Act. Once the statutory authority, being the A.D.M. followed by the Tahasildar has acted within the parameters of the relevant statute, that is, OGLS Act, the settlement authorities or the revisional authority under the OSS Act have no power to enter into the same. Mr. Mohanty further argues that even otherwise, there is absolutely no doubt with regard to validity of the lease granted in favour of the original lessee (Opposite Party No.6). In a subsequent inquiry, the Tahasildar found the lease valid and the petitioner in possession. In any case, the petitioner being the purchaser, cannot be called upon to produce the lease case record or the order passed therein.
Per contra, Mr. Mohanty, learned State counsel, would argue that while the authorities acting under the OSS Act may not enter into the question of validity of lease yet the same is required only to verify the valid source and flow of title of the petitioner. If the lease, being the source, is invalid, obviously the Petitioner cannot claim to have acquired valid title over the case land. Mr. Mohanty therefore, submits that revision was rightly dismissed.
Having heard learned counsel for the parties and on perusal of the impugned order as well as the materials on record, this Court is of the view that the authorities under the OSS Act cannot usurp jurisdiction of the authorities under the OGLS Act to decide the question of validity of a lease granted by the State earlier. This is the position of law long settled by several judicial pronouncements of this Court. The case of Narottam Rath v. State of Odisha1, can be profitably referred to in this regard, wherein this Court observed as follows:
“8.Then there are a series of orders passed by the Division Benches of this Court in 2014 including an order dated 4th July 2014 in W.P. (C) No. 8402 of 2014 (Nilendri Mohanty v. State); an order dated 4th July 2014 in W.P.(C) No. 8237 of 2014 (Kamal Basini Mohanty v. State of Orissa); an order dated 8th July 2014 in W.P.(C) No. 11165 of 2014 (Kapaleswar Firms Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Odisha); and an order dated 27th October 2014 in a batch of writ petitions, the lead case of which was W.P.(C) No. 4596 of 2014 (Tridev Kodamasingh v. State of Odisha), where it was held as under:
“The leases having been granted either under the OGLS Act or under any other appropriate law, unless and until it is set aside or declared invalid by the competent authority under the appropriate statute the lease cannot be said to be invalid. Unless and until the lease is either set aside or leasehold lands are resumed by the order of the competent authority, the Assistant Settlement Officer/Settlement authorities are bound by the lease orders and have no jurisdiction to question the validity of the lease concerned. For the omission of the State Government to scrutinize and to find out any irregularities in respect of any lease, no fault can be imputed either to the lessees or to the petitioner, who have purchased by registered sale deeds portions of such leasehold lands. Since the Assistant Settlement Officer was in seisin of the matter, it was incumbent on him to make field enquiry to find out the actual possession of the petitioners and he having not done so it is not open to him to doubt about the possession of the petitioners over the lands which they claimed and on that ground direct recording of the land in favour of the State.” xx xx xx
10.xx xx xx “10. … It must be made clear that it was none of the business of the Assistant Settlement Officer to go into the question of correctness of lease and direct to change the draft record because the authority under the OGLS Act, lease principle or Government Grants Act under which there are hierarchy of authorities to take cognizance of any irregularity and illegality and then pass the order of cancellation under the concerned statute. The Assistant Settlement Officer is not authorized to encroach upon the authority as prescribed under other revenue laws to behave like appellate authority to cancel the lease. On the other hand, the impugned order passed by the Assistant Settlement Officer is without jurisdiction and wholly erroneous. Similarly, the Additional Sub-Collector, without mentioning the provision of law under which he heard the appeal, has dismissed the appeal and as such, the same is also without jurisdiction and illegal. xx xx xx
20.Clearly the ASOs were acting without jurisdiction and beyond the scope of their powers under the OSS Act It is obvious that powers which could have been exercised only under the OGLS Act were sought to be exercised by the ASO which was impermissible in law for them to do. The above extracted portions of the orders of this Court conclusively settle the legal position in this regard and do not bear repetition.”
Even otherwise, the claim of the petitioner that the lease of the land was originally granted to Opposite Party No.6 has not been rebutted in any manner. On the contrary, it is seen that in W.L.L. Remand Case No.81/1988, the lease granted vide W.L.L. Case No.2719/1973 in favour of Opposite Party No.6 was held to be valid. The same is also reflected in the yadast as well as the Not Final ROR (Parcha) mentioning the subsequent purchase by the petitioner. All these facts were pleaded in detail and sequentially by the portioner in her revision petition. The revisional authority however, drew adverse inference on the ground that she had not submitted certified copy of W.L.L. Case No.2719/1973. This Court fails to understand the logic behind such finding for the reason that when the lease case is known and the petitioner is admittedly not the lessee, the concerned authorities in custody of the case record could have been called upon by the revisional court to transmit the case record. The other ground that the petitioner did not submit Hal-Sabik correlation also appears to be an error of record inasmuch as the revision petition clearly describes the same in the schedule appended thereto. The further observation of the revisional Court that the lease re-enquired by the Tahasildar must have been sent to Sub-Collector, Bhubaneswar to sanction the lease, but no such information is provided relating thereto is nothing but a speculative exercise. After observing thus, the revisional authority goes on a tangent to hold that it is an attempt to grab Government land through fraudulent means. Non-production of the sanction of lease by the competent authority and the order of the transfer of the case land under Section 22 of the OLR Act has also been cited. With such observations, the revisional authority has arrived at the conclusion that the petitioner does not enjoy valid flow of title over the case land.
For the reasons already indicated, the grounds so cited to reject the petitioner’s claim can hardly be countenanced in law. This Court is constrained to observe that the revisional authority has exceeded its jurisdiction by entering into areas not within its domain and described the claim as fraudulent without any acceptable material or evidence. The impugned order is therefore, rendered unsustainable in law.
For the foregoing reasons therefore, the Writ Petition is allowed. The impugned orders passed in Objection Case No. 576/203 dated 23.08.2013 and OSS Case No. 709 of 2020 dated 09.08.2024 are set aside. The Tahsildar, Jatni is directed to cancel the finally published ROR issued in the name of the State and issue a fresh ROR in the name of the Petitioner in respect of the case land. The whole exercise should be carried out within two months from the date of production of certified copy of this order by the petitioner.
The other five writ applications, namely, W.P.(C) Nos. 2973, 3039, 4668, 5047 and 7634 of 2025, relate to different portions of land claimed through the lease granted in favour of Sura Naik under W.L.L. Case No. 2715 of 1973. After obtaining permission under Section 22 of the OLR Act, Sura Naik transferred portions of the leased land, which have been subsequently purchased by the respective petitioners in the aforesaid writ applications. As discussed hereinabove, all these writ applications involve similar facts and common questions of law. The reasons recorded hereinabove shall, therefore, apply to these five writ applications as well. Accordingly, the impugned orders challenged in the aforesaid writ applications are also set aside. The Tahasildar, Jatni, is directed to cancel the finally published RORs issued in the name of the State Government and issue fresh RORs in favour of the respective petitioners in respect of their respective case lands. The entire exercise shall be completed within a period of two months from the date of production of certified copy of this order by the respective petitioners.
All the Writ Petitions are disposed of accordingly.
Footnotes
- 1.2023 SCC OnLine Ori 153