K MANIKYARAJA BALLAL Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Writ Petition No. 18666 of 93, involves same question of law which is in relation to the Writ Petition No. 34762 of 95 and other connected Writ Petitions listed for hearing, as such, this Writ Petition has also been heard along with those writ petitions and all these writ Petitions are being disposed of by one common order.

(2.) THE facts of the cases in the nutshell are that in all these cases, in proceeding under Section 5 of Act No. 2 of 79, the Assistant commissioners have ordered resumption of the granted land as mentioned and described in the petitions and the orders and the appeals filed by the transferees - petitioners have been dismissed and disposed of by the Deputy Commissioners concerned affirming the orders of resumption and restoration of the land to the grantees or their heirs.

(3.) THE contention on behalf of the petitioners has been made to the effect by Sri Mohandas N. Hegde as well as by Sri Sripathy and by Sri R. M. Nawaz, holding brief for Sri Abdul Khader that the orders made by the Assistant Commissioners as well as by the Deputy commissioners suffer from jurisdictional error. The learned Counsel for the petitioners contended that the Act, that is, the Karnataka scheduled Case and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of certain Lands) Act, (Act No. 2 of 79), is applicable only with respect to the granted land as defined in the Act, namely, the land granted land as defined in the Act, namely, the land granted by the government or the Government's authorities in favour of persons belonging to the castes classes which are described as Scheduled castes or Scheduled Tribes. The learned Counsels contended that at the time when the grant was made in favour of the alleged grantees, there was no such thing as Scheduled Caste. Expression scheduled Caste is an innovation under the Constitution and the scheduled Caste is a later development, so he contended that the land which had been granted to the grantees, where the lands cannot be said to have been granted to the Scheduled Caste persons, the further contention has been to the effect that before exercising the power under Sections 4 and 5 of this Act No. 2 of 79, the authorities had as well as have to investigate and to record a finding atleast prima facie finding, that the grantees were none-else, but they belonged to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe and no finding has been recorded or arrived at by either Assistant Commissioners or by the Deputy Commissioners and without investigating the question or without recording the finding, they could not proceed or pass order of resumption of the land.