M.C.JAIN, J. - (1.) THIS writ petition is directed against the order dated March 23, 1979 passed by the Deputy Secretary Revenue (Ceiling) under Section 15(2) of the Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1979 (for short 'the Act').
(2.) THE petitioner's ceiling case was dropped by the Sub -Divisional Officer (Ceiling), Sri karanpur on April 3, 1972 against which, the State Government went in appeal and the case was remanded. After the remand of the case, on December 9, 1977 the Sub Divisional Officer again found that the land held by the petitioner is below the ceiling limit, so the proceedings were dropped. The petitioners ceiling case was again decided by the Authorised Officer under the Act. He again dropped the proceedings by his order dated May 16, 1975.
(3.) ON April 1, 1966, the petitioner Hariram had four adult sons namely Manirum, Dayaram, Dhanraj and Anand Swroop. A decree for partition was passed on October 6, 1969 by the Sub -Divisional Officer, Karan pur in suit No. 71 of 1969. The land was also mutated in accordance with their respective shares under the partition -decree. The petitioner's ceiling case was re -opened by the Deputy Secretary under Section 15(2) of the Act One of the reason assigned by the Deputy Secretary for re -opening of the case, is that an enquiry should have been conducted with regard to the number of the members in the petitioner's family in accordance with the definition of the family given under Section 30 -B(a). Mr. B L. Purohit, learned Counsel for the petitioner urged that even on January 1, 1966, the petitioner's sons were major, so their shares in the land could be clubbed as they can not be said to be dependent on their father. According to Mr. Purohit, only minor children can be said to be dependent on their father. He pointed out that before the Authorised Officer, the State did not put forward any such case that the major sons of the petitioner are also dependent on him and reliance was placed on the observations made Shri Shrimal, J., in D.B. Civil Writ Petition No 1616 of 1981 - -Mst. Bhanwari Bai v. Board of Revenue and Ors. decided on April 14, 1982 (Jaipur Bench). His observation is that: Dependent mens a person, who derives support from another. When a statutory obligation is created on a person to maintain his or her minor children, it will be too much to say that such a child is not dependent on the parson, who is obliged to maintain him, simply because he is a member of a coparcenary.;