Satish Chandra, J. - (1.) IN this group of writ petitions the main questions raised are common. The facts requisite for the decision of the common questions are also similar. All these can conveniently be decided by one judgment.
(2.) THE petitions are under Article 226 of the Constitution. THEy pray that the orders of the authorities constituted under the U. P. Large Land Holdings Tax Act, 1957 be quashed. In response to notices served on the petitioners under Section 7(2) of the Large Land Holdings Tax Act, the petitioners filed returns showing the annual valuation of their land holdings. The assessing authority did not accept the returns and called upon the petitioners to prove it. The petitioners filed oral and documentary evidence in support of their case that certain disputed areas of land were not theirs but were the holdings of their wives or sons or brothers in view of a partition of the joint family properties between the members of the family, by a partition decree or by a will or by a partition deed. In some cases the petitioners urged that they had transferred the land to others and that they were not liable to be taxed for such areas. The assessing authority did not accept the petitioners' case. In its view mere partition by a decree or deed or sale by a registered deed was insufficient, but that the petitioners must, in addition, prove that the partition or sale was recognised in the revenue records and that there was a de facto separation of management and cultivation of the holding. The petitioners went up in appeal but the Commissioner upheld this view. The petitioners thereafter filed a revision under Section 12 of the Act before the Board of Revenue. Before the Board of Revenue reliance was placed by the petitioners on a Division Bench decision of this Court in Mohan Lal v. State, reported in 1962 All LJ 842.
(3.) TILL this decision came, the Board of Revenue had taken the view that the holding tax has to be levied on a landholder for the entire area recorded in his name or in the names of the members of his family, in the revenue papers; and that it is immaterial whether any transfer has taken place unless the transfer is followed by an entry in the revenue records in favour of the transferee. (See Abdul Rashid Khan v. State, 1961 RD 118). This view was over-ruled by the High Court in Mohan Lal's case, 1962 All LJ 842. Desai, C. J. speaking for the Bench observed: "What is clear from Section 4 is that the petitioner was liable to be assessed to holding tax on the annual value of the aggregate of all land held or occupied by him on 1-7-1957. It is immaterial whether he held or occupied it in his own name or in the names of his sons. The question in whose name the land was held or occupied will not arise if it was not held by him..... The Commissioner and the Board of Revenue have clearly gone wrong in taking everything upon the entries in the village records. The words "whether in his own name etc." did not make entries in the village records relevant when he was not found to have title or possession....... A landholder who has neither title or possession over land, cannot certainly be said to occupy it merely because his name is recorded in the village records, but he also cannot be said to hold it. The lekhal's act of recording his name wrongly in the village records cannot be said to be his act of holding the land. The essential question to be considered was whether the land was held or occupied by the petitioner on 1-7-1957 or not; if it was answered in the affirmative it did not matter whether his name was recorded or his son's, and if it was answered in the negative, no further question arose and the land was not to be included in his land holding." In effect this decision ruled that revenue records are not decisive for finding whether a holding was held or occupied by the landholder; the reality has to be found out. With respect to the binding efficacy of this Court's decision in Mohan Lal's case, 1962 All LJ 842, the Board of Revenue observed as follows in its judgment disposing of the revision petition of Raja Sheopati Singh, who is the petitioner in Civil Misc. No. 1432 of 1965: "The judgment of the Hon'ble High Court was passed an 17-5-1962. This judgment cannot have retrospective effect. Assessments were made in 1959 and 1960 while orders in appeal were, passed in 1960 and 1961. The orders of the Hon'ble High Court were passed in 1962. The new interpretation of law cannot be given retrospective effect. Till 1960 and 1961 the interpretation of law was that the recorded entries should be the guiding factor in coming to the conclusion whether a person was a landholder or not. It has also been held by the Board of Revenue in 1964 RD 161, Sampuran Singh v. State, that a decision on a point of law in accordance with the prevalent interpretation of law at the time of decision is not to be regarded as a wrong exercise of jurisdiction in the light of a subsequent inter-pretation of law. These cases must, therefore, be judged according to the law as it was inter- pretated till 1961 and not according to interpretation of law as given by the Hon'ble High Court subsequently on 17-5-1962.";