- (1.) ALL these five appeals give rise to a common question of law and hence they are to be disposed of by this judgment.
(2.) NATHU Singh put up three different applications be ore the Settlement Officer for correction of entries in the Parcha Chakbandi. In all these applications Agar Singh was impleaded as the opposite party. All these applications were presented on the one and the same date i. e. 8. 1. 1954. One application related to Khasra No. 718, the other Khasra Nos. 825 and 918 etc. and the third to a land known as Sat Bigha Wali Ore. Chiranjilal put up two applications before the Assistant Settlement Officer. The first was presented on 3. 3. 1954 and related to land attached to Mohanwali well, the other was presented on 4. 3. 1954 and related to the land known by the name of Mukhiaji Jai Narainwali. Before any final decision could be arrived at on these applications by the Settlement Officer it appears that the Government issued a notification regarding the closure of survey operations and there upon all these pending proceedings were transferred to the S. D. O. Dausa. After repeated adjournments and recording some evidence of the parties the S. D. O. to whom these cases were eventually transferred, by his decision dated 5. 11. 1957 rejected them all with the brief observation that as no objections were preferred prior to the distribution of the Parchas before the Settlement Officer no action could be taken in these cases. Hence these appeals. Shri Ramchandra Shastri who appeared for the respondents in appeal No, 49 raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of all these appeals on the ground that these ail proceedings were transferred to the court of the Collector under sec. 181 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act and hence an appeal shall lie to the Settlement Commissioner against the decision of the Collector as provided in sec. 75 (e) of the Act. This argument is clearly untenable. In the first place all these cases were commenced prior to the enforcement of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, and secondly all these cases were transferred by the Settlement Officer to the S. D. O. Dausa before the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act was enforced. Hence the appeals arising from these cases cannot be governed by the provisions of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act. The right of appeal is not a mere matter of procedure but is a substantive right as pointed out by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in A. I. R. 1957 S. C. 540 - "the institution of the suit carries with it the implication that all rights of appeal then in force are preserved to the parties thereto till the rest of the career of the suit. The right of appeal is a vested right and such a right to enter the superior court accrues to the litigant and exists as on and from the date the lis commences and although it may be actually exercised when the adverse judgment is pronounced such right is to be governed by the law prevailing at the date of the institution of the suit or proceeding and not by the law that prevails at the date of its decision or at the date of the filing of the appeals. This vested right of appeal can be taken away only by a subsequent enactment, if it so provides expressly or by necessary intendment and no otherwise. " There is nothing in the previsions of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act to show that these provisions were intended to apply to pending cases and appeals as well Such a provision is, however, to be found in sec. 206 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, but is conspicuous by its absence from the provisions of the Land Revenue Act. The fo?um of appeal in these cases will, therefore, be determined not by the provisions of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act but by the provisions of the law that was in force at the time when all these cases were commenced. As conceded by the learned counsel for the appellants these cases were governed by items 17 or 18. group 'd' Schedule I of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act. The first appeals will, therefore, be governed by the provisions of sec. 19 (ii) of the Act and will lie to the Collector' A second appeal will also lie in these cases under sec. 20 of the aforesaid Act and the Board may also exercise its revisional jurisdiction under S. 26 of that Act. These first appeals have been filed in the Board which should under the circumstances pointed out above should be preferred before the Collector, Jaipur. The learned counsel for the appellants, however, stated that all these appeals may be treated as revisions and as the trial court has refused to exercise jurisdiction vested in it by law the Board may pass necessary orders in the interests of justice to avoid multiplicity of proceedings. No serious objection can be raised against this proposition. The trial court has evidently failed to apply its mind to the provisions contained in secs. 76 and 89 of the Jaipur State Grants Land Tenures Act under which the pending cases were transferred to his court after the close of the Record and Settlement operations. He had jurisdiction to try and decide these cases as the Record and Settlement operations had come to a close, The order passed by him clearly amounts to a refusal to exercise jurisdiction ves»ed in him by law. We, therefore, treat all these appeals as revision applications, allow them and direct that the order of the S. D. O. dated 5. 11. 57 shall be set aside and all the cases shall be remanded back to him with the direction that they ail be heard and determined separately in accordance with law. .;