A.Banerji, J. - (1.) This writ petition is directed against an oider passed by the District Judge, Rampur in a ceiling appeal by the State of U. P. against the present petitioners decided on 9.6.1981. White allowing the appeal the learned District Judge held that the society held no surplus land but Sri Rana Pratap Singh held 133.33 acres irrigated land as surplus and it was declared as such. The petitioners challenged in this writ petition the above order and it was contended that the order is patently erroneous and is liable to be quashed.
(2.) It will be necessary to state briefly the relevant facts and then notice the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners and the reply of the learned counsel for the respondent First, the facts : A notice under Section 10(2) of the Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was issued to the petitioner No. 1 Model Co-operative Farming Society to show cause why 179.77 or 181.66 acres of the land be declared as surplus. The society had a total of 204.97 acres and since it could retain only 18.02 acres as ceiling limit plus 4 acres as Abadi land, consequently the remaining area was liable to be declared as surplus Objection was filed by the society that it had 20 members and as such the Society had no surplus land. It was also pleaded that notice had not been given to individual members of the society under Section 10(2) of the Act and as such the notice was liable to be discharged. The Prescribed Authority rejected the objections and declared 131.35 acres of land as surplus. An appeal was filed by the State before the District Judge, Ratnpur and that the appeal was dismissed on 25.11.1975. The society filed a writ petition in the High Court which was allowed and the order of the Prescribed Athority as well as of the Appellate Authority were set aside and the Prescribed Authority was directed to decide the claim of the society afresh after serving notice to the members of the society who had contributed their land to it in accordance with law. Thereafter a fresh notice was given to Rana Pratap Singh, one of the members of the society, petitioner No. 2, who had contributed a major portion of the land to the society. In this notice it was proposed that the petitioner No. 2 had 133.33 acres as surplus land. The latter filed an objection claiming that the society was registered in the year 1959 and the share of each members in the land held by the society was equal, the name of the society was recorded in the revenue records in the year 1959 and the members who contributed land to the society had lost their rights in the land and the society alone had become the land holder. It was also pleaded that in 8 acres of land there was Abadi and the entire land was unirrigated and the notice to the petitioner No. 2 was beyond prescribed time. The Prescribed Authority in its decision held that the entire land was possessed by the society and it had no surplus land. The Prescribed Authority held that the society possessed 204.97 acres of land and since there were 19 members and share of each member was 10.97 acres which was below the prescribed limit and as such none of the members possessed surplus area. Abadi lay only in 3 acres of land. The notice to petitioner No. 2 was accordingly discharged. Thereupon the State filed an appeal before the Appellate Authority. It was contended on behalf of the State that in view of the provisions of Section 5 (4) of the Act the land for the purposes of the Act would be deemed to belong to the members who contributed the land. The contributors would remain the tenureholders even if a farming society had been formed much earlier. This view was upheld by the district Judge by his order dated 9-6-1981. It is against this order that the present writ petition has been filed.
(3.) Mr. S. P. Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioners contended that the farming society having been formed in the year 1959, much before the advent of the Act in 1960. and the land having been entered in the revenue records in the name of the society, it could not he held that the land belonged to the tenureholder or continued to be held by the tenureholder and as such the notice to petitioner No. 2 was manifestly erroneous. It was liable to be discharged. His second contention was that Section 5 (4) of the present Act was not at all applicable to the facts of the present case. The notice was rightly given to the society which held the land as tenureholder and the petitioner No. 2 was not a tenureholder. Hence, Section 5 (1) was also inapplicable. Thirdly, the finding that the society was not a tenureholder was manifestly erroneous and lastly it was urged that the law on the point has been wrongly understood by the Appellate Authority.;