- (1.) The short question involved in these writ petitions, as set out in their Ground Nos. A to F is--Whether an appeal would lie under section 33 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 ("the U.L.C.R. Act") in respect of the orders passed prior to the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Repeal Act, 1999 ("the Repealing Act"), and where the possession pursuant to such orders was also taken prior to the enforcement of the Repealing Act? This legal issue, in fact, is no more res integra. The brief facts on record are: One Dhan Singh filed his statement under section 6(1) of the U.L.C.R. Act on 15.9.1976 in the Office of the Competent Authority (CA) which was registered as Ceiling Case No. 4838/2535/1976-77, State v. Dhan Singh. Pursuant thereto, the CA prepared a notice along with a draft statement under section 8(3) of the Act on 14.6.1979, proposing 7137.9414 sq. mtrs. of land of Village Chamrauli as the excess vacant land for the acquisition, but he did not send them by Regd. Post as per Rule 5(2) of the Rules framed under the U.L.C.R. Act. Instead, the process-servers allegedly personally went to serve Dhan Singh on 16.7.1979 and as per their reports, the notice was refused by Dhan Singh. Their said reports did not mention that the draft statement was either tendered to or refused by Dhan Singh, though its service was also sine quo non under section 8(3) of the U.L.C.R. Act. An ex parte order dated 8.5.1980 was passed by the CA (Annexure-3 to the WP). Nek Singh (the respondent) was, thereafter, born on 15.7.1983 as the second son of said Dhan Singh. The notification under section 10(3) of the Act was issued by the C.A. on 31.3.1984 (Annexure-5 to the WP). Unfortunately, Dhan Singh expired on 31.5.1984 leaving behind his two minor sons, namely, Pooran Singh aged 12 years and Nek Singh (respondent) aged about 1 year. The CA then purportedly passed the order under section 10(5) of the U.L.C.R. Act on 19.12.1985 (Annexure-6 to the WP), requiring deceased Dhan Singh to deliver possession to the Collector or his authorised representative "within a period of 30 days from the date of its receipt". The process-server, when went on 9.1.1986 to serve it upon Dhan Singh, found him to have already died. The Tehsil Officials pursuant to this order dated 19.12.1985 allegedly transferred the possession on 23.1.1986 to the State Government (Annexure-6 to the WP). Nek Singh attained his majority on 15.7.2001. It is also not in dispute that the order dt. 8.5.1980 (order under section 8(4)) and 19.12.1985 (order under section 10(5)) passed by the CA were never communicated to Nek Singh or Dhan Singh. When Nek Singh came to know about the said orders on 19.9.2006, he immediately filed two appeals against them, being Misc. (Ceiling) Appeal Nos. 86 and 87 of 2006, before the Appellate Authority/District Judge, Agra under section 33 of the U.L.C.R. Act. Both of these appeals were allowed by the Appellate Authority by its reasoned orders dated 4.11.2008. Feeling aggrieved, the petitioners have filed these writ petitions against them with gross and unexplained delay of about 200 days. In these petitions, the only limited question raised by the petitioners is that the aforesaid appeals were not maintainable because the U.L.C.R. Act stood repealed by the Repealing Act. The petitioners have not assailed any finding of the appellate orders on any factual or legal grounds in these writ petitions. As such, the controversy in these writ petitions lies in a narrow compass as to whether the appeals filed before the Appellate Authority below were maintainable or not due to the Repealing Act.
(2.) The parties have exchanged their affidavits including additional counter-affidavits which were taken on record. Heard the learned Counsel for the parties and carefully perused the records.
(3.) The Repealing Act came into force in the State of U.P. w.e.f. 18.3.1999 and its section 3(1)(a) read as under: Section 3(1). The repeal of the principal Act shall not affect.--(a) the vesting of any vacant land under sub-section (3) of section 10, possession of which has been taken over by the State Government or any person duly authorized by the State Government in this behalf or by the competent authority.;