- (1.) THIS petition has been filed against th order dated 21-5-2008 passed by the Board of Revenue Ajmer (herein after 'the Board') dismissing petitioner's appeal under Section 76 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956 (herein after 'the 1956 Act') and upholding the order dated 31-10-2006 passed by the Revenue Appellate Authority Ajmer. A further challenge in the writ petition is to the dismissal order dated 4-11-2011 passed by the Board on review petition filed by the petitioner against the order dated 21-5-2008 passed by the Board.
(2.) BEFORE dealing with the facts of the case and grounds agitated in the present writ petition, this court cannot restrain itself from noticing the fact that an allotment made to a landless agriculturist on 30-6-1995 one Mangla, now deceased and represented by his legal heirs, has been put to challenge through seven innings at the instance of the petitioner in the cynical expectation that any judicial aberration in a crowded docket of the courts would facilitate the petitioner unlawfully obtaining 10 bighas agricultural land. It is difficult to conceive as to how a landless agriculturist to whom allotment of 10 bighas land was made has been able to sustain about seventeen years in litigation before various tiers of the courts. This case is symptomatic of the gross misuse of judicial process and the salutary purpose because of low court fees to allow access to justice to poorest of the citizens. Rule 20 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Allotment of land for Agricultural Purposes) Rules, 1970 (herein after the Rs.1970 Rules') makes a provision for allotment of land to trespassers on government agricultural land. Rule 20 of the 1970 Rules paraphrased states that instead of ejecting a trespasser from any agricultural land (Siwai Chak) in the name of the government occupied by him without any lawful authority, the Sub Divisional Officer can, subject to specific or general direction of the State Government, on the advice of the Advisory Committee, allow such trespasser to retain such land through regularisation if such a person is a landless agriculturist and the total area of land held by him, including the land so regularised/ allotted does not exceed 15 bighas of irrigated land. In terms of powers under Rule 20 aforesaid, with reference to State Government's circular dated 24-11-1992, the Sub Divisional Officer Ajmer vide order dated 30-6-1995 along with 32 others to whom allotment was also made, allotted to Mangla 10 bighas of land in Khasra No.1420 in village Kishanpura Govalia. Following the allotment by way of regularisation, the land was mutated in the revenue records in the name of Mangla on 13-7-1995. Mangla continued with possession of the land-now lawfully.
(3.) THE petitioner Surta Singh laid a challenge to allotment/ regularisation of land on 30-6-1995 to Mangla before the Collector Ajmer, after a delay of about three and a half years. A separate challenge to mutation dated 13-7-1995 was also made by the petitioner. Vide order dated 23-6-2000, the Collector Ajmer held that the delay in filing an application under Rule 20 (2) of the allotment Rules 1970 was being over-looked, but on the merits thereof the challenge was not sustainable both in respect of allotment dated 30-6-1995 and the consequent mutation dated 13-7-1995. It was held that a challenge to allotment by way regularisation under Rule 20 of the 1970 Rules could be made under the proviso to Rule 20 (2) of the 1970 Rules only where the regularisation had been obtained through fraud or mis-representation or had been against the Rules and in the case set up by Surta Singh he had been unable to make out any case either on the basis of any oral or documentary evidence.;