Raj Kumar Jha vs The State of Bihar and Others

Sheema Ali Khan, J.—The Petitioners in all these writ applications are vendees who have purchased a piece of land in Village-Dhurlakh from Respondent No. 5, Kamla Kant Jha through sale deed dated 8.1.1985. An objection was filed by Respondent No. 4 to the sale of the lands in question by Respondent No. 5 in favour of the Petitioners before the Collector, Samastipur. The Collector, Samastipur presuming that Dhurlakh village is under the consolidation proceedings, has held that the sale deed are void and imposed a fine of Rs. 250/- on the Petitioners.

The Petitioners, in order to substantiate their cases, refer to Annexure-1 series. Annexure-1 is information sought by the Petitioner Raj Kumar Jha, regarding the fact whether consolidation proceedings were initiated or pending in the Dhurlakh village. The answer is that by letter No. 104 issued by the Consolidation Officer, dated 10.5.1984, a proposal was sent, to exempt the village from consolidation proceedings, as it did not come within the target as mentioned by the State Government in the year 1984-85. Similarly, Laxmi Mahto, one of the Petitioners also filed an application for information regarding the pendency of the proceedings in the village. It has been specifically stated that the consolidation proceedings were not initiated with respect to this village, therefore, it is submitted, that no sanction is required for giving information to the Consolidation Officer, that the particular person wishes to transfer, in any manner, the lands belonging to the said person. Annexure-1/C refers to a letter issued by the Revenue and Land Reforms Department which indicates that Village Dhurlakh has been exempted u/s 5(1) of the Consolidation Act from the consolidation proceedings for the year 1986-87.

Counsel for the Petitioners submits that these documents have not been taken into consideration by the Collector while passing an order u/s 32 of the Act. In fact, it is submitted that till today, no consolidation proceedings is pending in the Village-Dhurlakh and as such the order dated 14.7.1987 passed by the Collector is not justified.

The Petitioners being aggrieved by the order of the Collector had moved before the Director, Consolidation by filing revision. The Director, Consolidation refused to interfere with the order of the Collector on the ground that he does not have the power to sit over the order of the Collector with respect to the orders u/s 32 of the Act.

I do not wish to go into the question of the power of the Director, Consolidation vis-a-vis the revision filed against the order of the Collector u/s 32 of the Act as I am not satisfied by the reasonings given by the Collector for holding that the sale deeds of the Petitioners are void in view of the fact that there are ample materials to show that in fact there is no consolidation proceeding pending in the village on the date on which the sale deed was executed i.e. 8.1.1985.

The Respondent No. 4 who had filed the objection had not appeared before this Court although notices were issued to him and, therefore, it appears that the objection was nothing but a mischievous act so that the Petitioners could not get any benefit of the sale deeds.

In view of the discussions made aforesaid, the impugned order as contained in Annexure-2 is hereby quashed.

In the result, all these three writ applications are allowed.