M.P.Mehrotra, J. - (1.) THIS petition arises out of the proceedings under the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960.
(2.) THE facts, in brief, are these. The notice under Section 10(2) was issued to the Petitioner and objections were filed. They were beard and decided by the Prescribed Authority, a true copy of whose order dated 30th June, 1976, is annexure 3 to the petition. Thereafter an appeal was filed and the same was heard and decided by the IVth Addl. District Judge, Farrukhabad by his judgment dated 2nd March, 1977. The Petitioner's appeal was decided along with certain other appeals also by the said common judgment. Now, the Petitioner has come up in the instant petition and in support thereof I have heard Shri S.N. Srivastava, learned Counsel for the Petitioner. Counsel contended before me that the authorities below were not justified is not accepting the Petitioner's contention that certain plots were grove and certain other plots were Usar land. In this connection he has drawn my attention to the fact that the authorities below placed reliance on the statement of the Lekhpal and the report of the Naib Tehsildar dated 17th June, 1976. It seems to me that the said controversy is a pure controversy about fact and the authorities below were entitled to reach their conclusions on the basis of their appraisal of the evidence on the record. In what particular manner a particular piece of evidence should be considered or the probative value which should be given to a particular piece of evidence, is a matter which rests entirely in the domain of the authorities below. It should be emphasised that I am exercising a limited jurisdiction in the writ petitions and I do not have the wide powers of an appellate court. Therefore, the authorities below were entitled to come to their finding in respect of the land which was claimed to be Usar and grove. Learned Counsel contended that it was the mandatory duty of the authorities below to have sent for the Khasra of 1378, 1379 and 1380 Faslis to find out whether the plots in dispute were recorded as grove or usar. In my opinion, there is no such mandatory duty and it was for the Petitioner to have obtained certified copies of the said public documents and should have filed the same. I should emphasise that I am not dealing with a controversy under Section 4A of the Act. Learned Counsel next contended that Smt. Dal Kunwar should have been treated a separate tenure -holder and the land in her name should not have been included in the holding of the Petitioner. The contention is that she had been separated by the husband in 1948 and some time thereafter a Panchayat was held and on the basis of the Panchayat she became separated. The learned standing counsel has contended that the ceiling law does not recognize such customary separations and a wife must be a judicially separated wife. It is obvious to me that a customary intervention by the Panchayat leading to the wife living separately cannot be termed as a judicial separation. It is true that the Hindu Marriage Act was then not in force but, as the learned standing counsel has rightly pointed out the ceiling law is a special enactment with its special approach to the question of ceiling on land. It has used the expression 'judicially separated wife' and, therefore, the obvious intention is that other wives, irrespective of whether they are living with the husband or they are living separately from the husband and whether by their own choice or on the basis of some intervention by some mediators, cannot be termed as judicially separated wives. In this view of the matter, the second contention of the learned Counsel is untenable,
(3.) LEARNED Counsel next contended that the choice given by the Petitioner was not fully accepted and the authorities below have not given their reasons for not accepting such choice in full. It seems to me that this contention is correct.;