M.C.Desai, C.J. - (1.) The appellant, who is a tenure holder, failed to obtain certiorari from our brother Broome for the quashing of an order passed by a prescribed authority under the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act rejecting his application for including certain land in his ceiling area or excluding it from the surplus area and an order passed by the District Judge dismissing and appeal from it as barred by time.
(2.) As far as the order of the District Judge on appeal from the order of the prescribed authority is concerned it was barred by time because the period of limitation ran from the date of the order of the prescribed authority and not from the date of knowledge. It was the duty of the appellant's counsel to be present on the date fixed for delivery of the order by the prescribed authority; if he did not appear before it on the date and, therefore, did not know about it the appellant is not entitled to compute the period of limitation for an appeal from it from the date on which he came to know about it. The law treats the date fixed for the delivery of the order as the date on which he acquired the knowledge of its contents. In any case this view taken by the learned District Judge could not be said to be so manifestly wrong that this Court could interfere with his order dismissing the appeal as barred by time.
(3.) Coming to the order of the prescribed authority, there were four grounds pressed before our learned brother. One was that there was some arithmetical error and our learned brother rightly pointed out that the appellant's remedy was to apply to the prescribed authority for correction of it. Another was that the appellant did not hold land in villages Kharkhuntra, Harakhpura and Neuri; the prescribed authority decided the question against the appellant on the basis of entries in the village records and there was nothing manifestly illegal in his doing so. Third objection was that land covered by a grove in the Abadi and land used as thrashing floor should have been exempted. As our learned brother pointed out the appellant's claim was too vague; he did not specify the land which he claimed to be exempt. The prescribed authority has exempted certain land. The last ground was the ground most vehemently passed before us by Sri Faujdar Rai; it was that the prescribed authority excluded certain plots from his ceiling area and included them in the surplus area against his wishes. Now the relevant facts are that the appellant did not file any statement in response to the general notice published under Section 9 of the Act. The prescribed authority prepared a statement as required by Section 10 and served a copy of it upon the appellant calling upon him to show cause within a certain time why it be not taken as correct. In reply to this notice the appellant filed an objection challenged certain plots of land within his ceiling area. The reason for including them within his ceiling area was that they formed part of a mechanised farm. The prescribed authority rejected his claim that they formed part of a mechanised farm and did not include them in his ceiling area and instead included them in the surplus area. This order was impugned before our learned brother on the ground that the prescribed authority committed a manifest error of law by not accepting his claim that the plots should be included within his ceiling area and not within the surplus area. Our learned brother rejected his contention because there was no law which compelled the prescribed authority to accept the appellant's choice as to which land of his should or should not be included within his ceiling area and also because there was no clear statement about the plots forming part of a mechanised farm.;