M.H. Beg, J. - (1.) THE Petitioner No. 2 states that he adopted Petitioner No. 1, a minor, as a son, as he has no issue and he executed a registered deed of adoption on 12 -8 -1947. On 4 -11 -1961, the Petitioner No. 2 applied to the Assistant Consolidation Officer praying that Petitioner No. 1 may be entered in the village records along with Petitioner No. 2 as a cobhumidhar. No objection was filed against this application. On 2 -12 -1961, the Assistant Consolidation Officer passed the following order Under Section 9(2) of the UP Consolidation of Holdings Act (hereinafter Mentioned as the Act): In Khata Nos. 15 and 136 of village Bahadur Chak the name of Ram Singh adopted son of Rikhideb Rai r/o Piprakalan shall also be recorded together with the name of the recorded tenure -holder. An appeal could be filed by a person aggrieved by that order within 30 days of the order made by the Assistant Consolidation Officer (21 days were altered into 30 days by an amendment after the 1958 Act with which we are concerned here). But Section 53B provided: The provisions of Section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, shall apply to the applications, appeals, revisions and other proceedings under this Act or the rules made thereunder. Section 11, Sub -section (1) make an order passed by the Settlement Officer in appeal final except when a second appeal filed against it Under Section 11, Sub -section (2) to the Deputy Director of Consolidation within 21 days of the order of the Settlement Officer. No appeal Under Section 11(2) had been filed at all to the Deputy Director as there was no appeal to the Settlement Officer. Long after the expiry of period of limitation for an appeal Under Section 11, Sub -section (1), the contesting opposite parties Nos. 4 to 9, with whom Petitioner No. 2 had been litigating, filed a Misc. Application on 16 -3 -1962 before the Assistant Settlement Officer against the order of the Assistant Consolidation Officer. This was rejected on the ground that the opposite parties had no locus standi and alternatively, on the ground that they could file an appeal. On 4 -6 1962, the contesting opposite parties filed a regular appeal to the Assistant Settlement Officer, opposite party No. 3, who passed a very brief order on 5 -10 -1962 in the following terms: I have heard the Learned Counsel for the parties and have gone through the lower court file. It is an admitted fact that the order of the learned lower court is an favour of an would be heir to be recorded as co -tenure -holder. Obviously, this order is illegal and cannot be allowed to stand. The order is, therefore, set aside. The entry will remain as it was in basic year.
(2.) THE Petitioners filed a second appeal against the order of the Assistant Settlement Officer, Under Section 11(2), before the Deputy Director of Consolidation who dismissed it on 4 -3 -1963. He noticed two points raised by the Petitioners. The first was that the contesting opposite parties had no locus standi to file an appeal as they were not aggrieved persons. The second was that the appeal was time barred and there was no justification for condonation of delay. Unfortunately, the Deputy Director of Consolidation also thought that recording the name of a would be heir as a co - tenure holder with the bhumidhar was prima facie illegal and that such a question could not legally arise. The Deputy Director held that the Assistant Settlement Officer had rightly set aside such an order when it was brought to his notice. The Petitioners then invoked the interference of the Director of Consolidation who also rejected the revision application Under Section 48 of the Act on 8 -8 -1963. It is obvious that the Consolidation authorities have acted in a grossly illegal fashion in denying Petitioner No. 1 his right as a co - tenure holder and Petitioner No. 2 his right to take him as a co -sharer in his right as a Bhumidhar so as to enable the two to be recorded as co -tenureholders. Section 152 of the UP ZA and LR Act makes it absolutely clear that the interest of a Bhumidhar shall be transferable subject to the conditions laid clown. It has not been shown that the conferment on one of the heirs the right of co - tenure holder by a bhumidhar upon his adopted son was prohibited by any provision of the UP ZA and LR Act, or by any other law. It has been held in Mahendra Singh v. Attar Singh, 1967 AWR 73: The Bhumidhari rights are special rights created by Act I of 1951 and these new rights are solely to be governed by the provisions of the Act. The notions of Hindu Law or Mohammadan Law which would be applicable to other property not governed by any special law cannot be imported into the rights created by this Act. The consolidation authorities seemed to be under the erroneous impression that an heir could not be taken as a tenure -holder. There are no restrictions upon such a transaction as for instance are found in the proviso to Section 33 of the UP Tenancy Act for conferring cotenancy rights.
(3.) ANOTHER patent error in the order of the consolidation authorities was that the contesting opposite parties were not aggrieved persons at all by the order made by the Assistant Consolidation Officer. They claim no right or interest in the Bhumidhari rights of the Petitioners and were clearly actuated by some oblique or improper motive. Their appeal should have been rejected on the ground that they were not aggrieved persons.;