RAM DAS Vs. DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CONSOLIDATION, GHAZIPUR AND OTH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is directed against an order passed by the Deputy Director of Consolidation Under Section 48 of the UP Consolidation of Holdings Act on 18-9-1963 allowing a revision from an order passed by the Assistant Settlement Officer (Consolidation) on 14-6-1963. One of the questions raised was whether the Deputy Director could interfere in revision under the amended or unamended provisions of law inasmuch as the Deputy Director could call for the records of a case decided or proceeding taken by a Deputy Director. In the present case, the Deputy Director was evidently exercising the powers of the Director of Consolidation which were delegated to him. The power of interfering with the orders of all subordinate authorities in revision were only conferred upon the Director under the amended provisions which came into force on 8-3-1963. Under the unamended provisions the Dy. Director, even when he was exercising the delegated powers of the Director, would be able to interfere only with the orders of the Deputy Director passed in second appeal.

(2.) The Deputy Director had set aside the order of the Assistant Settlement Officer (Consolidation) only on the ground that Rule A 102-C of the Land Records Manual (wrongly mentioned as Rule 102-A of the Land Records Manual in the order of the Deputy Director) was introduced in February 1958 so that the entries made by the patwari in favour of Mela opposite party No. 4 from 1361-F. to 1365 F. could not be excluded on the ground that the Lekhpal had failed to comply with any of the provisions of Paras A-80 and A-81. The result of introduction of paras A-102-C of the Land Records Manual was that the entries made by Lekhpal, which did not comply with the provisions of paras. A-80 and A-81 were not to be deemed to be entries made in the discharge of official duties. It was only entries made in accordance with official duties which carried with them the presumption of regularity and correctness. The Settlement Officer had excluded the entries in favour of Mela Opposite Party No. 4 on the ground that no entries except those for the year 1359 F. are supported by form P. A. 10 so that they were not admissible in evidence.

(3.) The Settlement Officer had relied on a decision of the Board of Revenue in Ram Lakhan v. Pardesi,1960 AndhWR 112 where it had been held that reliance was wrongly placed on khasra entries of the Lekhpal relating to the year 1362 F. because there was no note made his diary by the Patwari and no list prepared in Form P-A 10 and no copies issued to the persons entitled. In this case, it had been decided that the value to be attached to the entries would have to be decided in the light of other evidence and that the court was not right in relying on entries not shown to have been made in accordance with the procedure which was actually laid down in Paragraphs A-80 and A-81. These Paragraphs prescribe the making of a partal in the village by the patwari and the preparation of a consolidated list of entries in triplicate in a form known a Form P.A.10. A copy of the list had to be sent to the Supervisor Qanoongo and the other to the President of the Gaon Panchayat and still another to the persons entered in columns 3 and 4 of Form P.A. 10. In other words, the Settlement Officer was relying upon a decision which did not exclude the evidence altogether but required that the evidence of the entries should be tested in the light of other evidence in the case. One of the tests which was rightly applied by the Board of Revenue in Ram Lakhan's case was that the Lekhpal was not examined as a witness so that he Could depose how the entry of Qabiz had been made. The Board of Revenue had no doubt referred to Paragraph A 102-G(3) as a part of the arguments put forward before it, but it had not decided when the amendment introducing it came into force. The Deputy Director found that the amendment excluding entries, which had not been shown to have been made in compliance with Paragraphs A-80 and A-81, from the purview of entries made in the discharge of official duties came into force only in February 1968. On this solitary ground, the Deputy Director interfered with the findings arrived at by the Settlement Officer and held that Mela's possession from 1361F was proved. Not a word was said about a good deal of other evidence on record.