Sharafudin vs State Of Kerala

Devan Ramachandran, J

The petitioner alleges that even though his property, which is involved in this case, is unencumbered and without any attachments and such other on it, the 2nd respondent – Village Officer, is refusing to effect its transfer of Registry in his favour, but is asking him to obtain an order from the competent Civil Court that it suffers from no such inhibition. He contends that this stand of the 2nd respondent is illegal and therefore, prays that he be directed to effect transfer of Registry of the property in his favour without any further delay.

The learned Senior Government Pleader – Smt.K.Amminikutty, however, in response to the afore submissions of Sri.B.K.Gopalakrishnan – learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that this writ petition has been filed speculatively and conjecturely, since the Village Officer has only directed the petitioner to convince him that there are no attachments and other encumbrances over the property in question. She submitted that, therefore, if the petitioner is able to do so, 2nd respondent will complete the proceedings, following due procedure.

When I consider the afore submissions, it is without doubt that 2nd respondent cannot require the petitioner to favour him with an order from the competent Civil Court that there are no attachments over the property in question. The method of verifying whether there are encumbrances over a land is available in the Statutory Scheme and unless the Encumbrance Certificate or such other documents indicate such an event, it was completely unnecessary for the Village Officer to have asked the petitioner to approach the competent Civil Court.

In the afore circumstances, clarifying that the Village Officer cannot direct the petitioner to obtain an order from the Civil Court to the negative that there are no attachments or encumbrances over the property, and that he must act as per the entries in the Encumbrance Certificate or such other relevant documents, I dispose of this matter, directing the said Authority to do so, after affording an opportunity of being heard to the petitioner; thus culminating in an appropriate order and necessary action on his application for transfer of Registry of the property in question, as expeditiously as is possible, but not later than one month.

In order to enable the 2nd respondent – Village Officer to act as per the afore directions, I order the petitioner to mark appearance before him at 11 A.M. on 27.05.2022 and the Authority will thereupon dispose of the matter within the afore time frame, which would commence from that date.