- (1.) SHITLA Prasad Srivastava, J. This petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioners for issue of a writ of mandamus directing the authorities to decide about the il legalities before proceeding with the operations after providing opportunity of being heard to the tenure holders and quash the Form No. 23, issued without deciding the pending objections.
(2.) PETITIONERS allegations in the writ petition are that they are the tenure holders in village Saroorpur Khurd in which second time the consolidation operation have been started and for this purpose a notification has been published intheu. P. Ga/. cttcon27-6-1981. Sincethe villagers of the village were not interested in the consolidation operation, as the same was not in the interest of the public as such they approached the higher authorities. It is stated in the writ petition that though the writ petition is being filed by five persons but in fact the writ petition is on behalf of all the villagers and the writ petition is filed in the representative capacity. The plea of the petitioners arc that the village Saroorpur Khurd is a big village but the Assistant Consolidation Officer and Consolidation Officer sit about 15v miles away and are doing everything and it has become difficult for the tenure holders to attend their Court and the request to hold the Court in the village was turned down by the Consolidation Officers. It is further stated in the writ petition that valuation of the plots have been fixed ar bitrarily and the same are entirely different from the earlier consolidation operation in order to give benefit to the few influen tial persons very good land has been valued at lower rates only in order to give ad vantage to the influential persons and similar adjoining plots have been valued half of the rate only in order to give ad vantage to the few influential persons having large holdings. It is stated that the consolidation operation in the village were initially started for the first time m the year 1961 and de-notification under Section 52 of the U. P. Consolidation of Holding Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was also issued in the year 1961 and the consolidation operations became final and before start of the consolidation a notification under Section 4 of the Act as contemplated under the Act was also is sued. Thereafter the consolidation be came final. Petitioners contention is that there is no need to start the consolidation operation, as it will give advantage to some influential persons and the poor farmers will not be benefited at all. The allegations have been made that Hukum Singh, Om Prakash and Bali Ram Pradhan are the big tenure holders and they are being benefited by the giving advantage to them and their area of land has been increased. The petitioners have submitted that notification under Section 4-A of the Act was issued and it was published in the Lucknow Times in the year 1981. Petitioners have stated that more than 50% and nearly 75% villagers are against the consolidation scheme and have made various representations in this connection to various authorities. The entire villagers were aggrieved by the action of the Government and as such, they made repre sentation when the consolidation officer visited their village to start the consolida tion operation. It is further submitted that on the representation made by petitioners the Director of Consolidation issued a let ter to the Settlement Officer Consolida tion and deputed him to visit the spot and gave its report. The petitioners have not been informed as to what has happened upon their representation. It is further submitted that the petitioners have made representations even to the Members of the Parliament and the Ministers wrote letters to the District Magistrate. It is fur ther submitted that the entire proceedings under the consolidation operation are in valid and void. The allegations have also been made regarding the illegal allotment of land for the roads. The allegations have been made against the Deputy Director of Consolidation before whom the revisions were filed by the petitioners against the order of the Settlement Officer Consolida tion and the Deputy Director of Con solidation was in collusion with the high influential persons has refused to stay the operation of the order of the Settlement Officer Consolidation and rejected the stay application of the petitioners. Other irregularities were also mentioned in the writ petition. The petitioners challenged the notification on a number of grounds but at the initial stage, there was no prayer for quashing the notification rather only the writ of mandamus was claimed and subsequently, the petitions filed amend ment application and claimed the relief of certiorari for quashing the notification dated 27-6- 1981/11-6-1980. There was no objection to this amendment by the State and objection was filed by the contesting respondents. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties the amendment was allowed, therefore, the relief for quashing the notification has also been prayed by the petitioners.
(3.) COUNTER-affidavit has been filed by the contesting respondents as well as by the learned Standing Counsel. In para 19 of the counter-affidavit, it is stated that the complaints made by some of the villagers is being inquired by the higher authorities as the then Assistant Consolidation Of ficer Sri Mam Chand has already died in a bus accident and the then Consolidation Officer Sri Chhotey Lal Raghuvanshi has retired. In para 25 of the counter-affidavit, it is slated that the representation of the petitioners is still pending and the present writ petition is not maintainable. Kunwar Pal son of Ratan Singh, the newly added respondent also filed counter-affidavit. It is stated in para 4 of the counter-affidavit that this very notification was challenged by Girwar Singh and others in Writ Petition No. 14261 of 1986, Girwar Singh and others v. Deputy Director of Consolidation and others, which is also admitted to the petitioners as stated in para 13 of the writ petition. Il is stated that the said writ peti tion has already been dismissed by the Hon'ble Court and the said judgment is reported in 1988 A. L. J. 478 Girwar Singh v. Deputy Director of Consolidation and others. It is stated in the counter-affidavit that similar ground has been taken in this writ petition also. In paragraphs 6 and 7 of the aforesaid decision, the Court has held that it was expedient in the public interest, so to do that will not render the notifica tion bad and the Court held that the said notification was a valid notification. In support of the said decision, the Hon'ble Court has placed reliance on AIR I960 SC 1203. It is stated that earlier consolidation proceedings in the village was finalised in the year 1961, therefore, in the year 1981 the second notification was issued after more than ten years in the public interest. Thus there is presumption of satisfaction of the State Government. It is further stated that by amending Section 19 of the U. P. Consolidation of Land Holdings Act 1986, the period of ten years was changed as period of 20 years under the proviso to Section 4-A of the aforesaid Act. The present notification was issued after amending Section 4 of the U. P. Consolida tion of Land Holdings Act and before the Act of 1981, at that lime the period of ten years was mentioned in Section 4 of the Act. It is further submitted that all the proceedings have almost been completed and in some cases the revisions are pend ing before the Deputy Director of Consolidation but due to slay orders the proceeding of possession over the chaks have holdup of the entire village.;