GOPI SINGH AND ORS. Vs. DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CONSOLIDATION AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition Under Article 226 of the Constitution. It prays that the order of the Settlement Officer dated 15 -11 -1966 and of the Deputy Director, Consolidation dated 17 -3 -1966 be quashed.

(2.) DURING proceedings under the UP Consolidation of Holdings Act Respondents 4 to 8 filed objections claiming co -tenancy rights in the plots in dispute. The Consolidation Officer by his order dated 25 -8 -1965 allowed the objections. The Petitioners thereupon went up in appeal to the Settlement Officer, Consolidation. At the hearing of the appeal the Respondents raised a preliminary objection that the appeal was not maintainable because the village had been subjected to the notification Under Section 52 of the UP Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953 which was published on 22 -5 -1965, a date when the proceedings were pending before the Consolidation Officer and when the appeal had not even been instituted. This objection prevailed and the appeal was deposited as being beyond jurisdiction. The Petitioners thereupon went up in revision to the Deputy Director Consolidation. There also he met the same fate. The Deputy Director held that he had no jurisdiction to decide the revision because of the publication of the notification Under Section 52 of the Act prior to the institution of the revision. This view is challenged in the present petition. In order to consider the validity of this view it is necessary to read Section 52:

(3.) I am not satisfied that the view that cases or proceedings mentioned in Sub -section (2) refer to individual cases or proceedings which may be pending in a particular court on the date of issue of the notification is sound. In my opinion the term 'proceeding' has been used in a compendious sense so to include appeals. In Garikapati v. Subbiah Choudhry : AIR 1957 SC 540 S.R. Das, C.J. speaking for the majority of the Supreme Court laid down certain apposite propositions of law.