AMRENDRA KAUR Vs. COLLECTOR, RAMPUR AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In all these three connected petitions, common questions of law and fact are involved. They were therefore, as desired by learned counsel for the parties, heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment. Writ Petition No. 4470 of 2003 shall be the leading case.

(2.) By means of this petition filed under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner prays for issuance of a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the judgments and orders dated 30.8 1991 passed by respondent No. 2 and 16.10.2002 passed by respondent No. 1, contained in Annexures-1 and 5 to the writ petition, respectively.

(3.) The relevant facts of the case giving rise to the present petitions, in brief, are that the land in dispute was originally recorded in the name of Smt. Amrinder Kaur, the petitioner. Smt. Amrinder Kaur admittedly appointed the respondent No. 3 as her Mukhtar-e-nama on 27.3.1991. The Mukhtar-e-nama executed a sale-deed on 3.7.1991 in respect of the land in dispute in favour of the respondents No. 4 and 5, hereinafter referred to as contesting respondents, for a valuable consideration on the basis of Mukhtar-e-nama (in other two cases sale-deeds were executed on 7.1.1996 and 10.1.1996 in favour of respondents No. 4 and 5 in those cases). The contesting respondents on the basis of the said sale-deed, thereafter, applied for mutation of their names in the revenue papers before the competent authority on 30.8.1991. The said application was allowed by respondent No. 2. Challenging the validity of the said order, a highly belated revision was filed by the petitioner on 27.5.2002 alongwith an application under Sec. 5 of the Limitation Act. The said application and the revision were opposed by the contesting respondents. It was pleaded that the delay in filing the revision was not explained in accordance with the law', therefore, the application filed for condonation of delay was liable to be dismissed. It was further pleaded that even on merits, no case for interference was made out, inasmuch as there was no reliable evidence on the record to show that Mukhtar-e-nama executed by the petitioner in favour of the respondent No. 2 was ever cancelled in accordance with the law. The Court below, after hearing the parties and after perusing the material on record, refused to condone the delay and held that delay in filing the revision was not explained in accordance with the law He has disbelieved the explanation and the version offered by the petitioner for condonation of delay and dismissed the application for condonation of delay as well as the revision by its judgment and order dated 16.10.2002, hence the present petition.