Palok Basu - (1.) THIS writ petition has been filed by Rambali against the order of the Deputy Director of Consolidation dated H-12-1990. By the impugned order the Deputy Director has directed that benefit of section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act should be made available to the respondent Bagedu and bis objection may be treated as contest of title/ownership relating to the property which is converted into chak nos. 18, 19 and 22 during the consolidation operations and then the lis between the respondent and the petitioner may be decided in accordance with law by the Consolidation Officer at the relevant stage.
(2.) THE relevant facts are : A revision was filed by Bagedu before the Deputy Director of Consolidation under section 48 of the Consolidation of Holdings Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) alleging therein that it was only on a prohibition put by the pettitioner in the respondent's reaching the field that he smelt some foul play relating to the property righ's as a result of which the respondent got the records inspected which revealed that C. H. Form No. 23 purported then to have an order allegedly passed in the year 1972 recording the name of the predecessor of the petitioner in the said three chaks nos. IS, 19 and 22. It further transpired that from the enquiry no records or file could be traced as to justify the giving birth to the said order of mutation (Amaldarmad) in favour of the petioner. Consequently he filed the revision along with the prayer that the delay in filing the revision may be condoned as all proceedings, if any, have gone on illegally with the result that a genuine dispute has arisen relating to the rights of the respondent. In order to support the allegations made in the revision the respondent had filed enquiry reports from the office of the Consolidation Officer and also relevant authorities indicating that neither there was any file nor any order which may justify the existence of the mutation order (Amaldaramad) as indicated above. THE Deputy Director of Consolidation issued notice on the revision and after hearing the petitioner and the respondents directed that in view of the allegations made by the respondent bene St of section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act must be extended to him. It may be noted here that the respondent had claimed himself to be an illiterate villager. By the impugned order dated 14-12-1990 the Deputy Director of Consolidation has directed the matter to be remanded to the court of the Consolidation Officer so that the dispute about rights and ownership as raised by Bagedu as against Ram Bali, the petitioner, may be decided on merits in accordance with law, without paying any heed whatsoever to the alleged order dated 4-3-1972 which was more than obviously a forgery and a fraud. Sri S. D. Pathak, learned counsel for the petitioner cited three authorities but mainly relied upon the decision of a Division Bench of this Court Hari Ram v. Deputy Director of Azamgarh, 1989 RD 981. On the strength of the said decision it was sought to be made out that no revision lay before the Deputy Director of Consolidation and, therefore, the writ petition should be admitted. The argument is that once a notification under section 52 of the Act has been made and published, all proceedings come to an end. It is, therefore, argued that the said order dated 4-3-1972 having became final by virtue of notification under section 52 dated 25th December, 1976, the Deputy Director of Consolidation possessed no justification to reopen the matter.
(3.) THE argument advanced on the facts of the present case, though attractive lacks substance. Firstly, the Deputy Director of Consolidation is in charge of all proceedings that come within his territorial jurisdiction relating to the consolidation of village. Overall power has been conferred by the said section as may be readily seen by the section itself which is quoted hereunder : "48. Revision and reference (1) THE Director of Consolidation may call for and examine the record of any case decided or proceedings taken by any subordinate authority for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the regularity of the proceedings, or as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any order (other than interlocutory order) passed by such authority in the case of proceedings and may, after allowing the parties concerned an opportunity of being heard, make such order in the case of proceedings as he thinks fit." Under the Rules, 30 days is the limitation fixed for filing a revision. It is well settled that the limitation begins from the date of knowledge of an order. The Deputy Director of Consolidation has in the instant case accepted the plea of the respondent after hearing the petitioner and giving him an opportunity that there was sufficient reason to hold that the respondent had no knowledge and for that matter could not have any knowledge of an order which was ab initio non-existent. The finding of the Deputy Director of Consolidation that the alleged order dated 4-3-1972 was a forged one and was brought about fraudulently must be accepted as correct in view of the sound reasoning found in the impugned order. Consequently it follows that the Deputy Director of Consolidation is empowered to judge the correctness or even the propriety of an order or proceeding coming up from proceedings before any of the authorities working under him. Consequently it would be an injustice had he, after recording a finding that the so-called order dated 4-3-1972 was fraudulent one, not granted relief to the respondent. It must be said to the credit of the Deputy Director of Consolidation that he has remanded the matter to the court of the Consolidation Officer for deciding the matter on merits and, therefore, no one should have a grievance as to the existence of his rights and if so, he must vindicate his rights or merits before the Consolidation Officer.;