NAGARAPPA S Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition deserves to be allowed on a short ground. Late Sri Mariappa father of Petitioners 1 and 2 was granted 2 acres and 23 guntas in Survey No. 7, situated in Vyasanhally village, Shimoga Taluk, Shimoga District, by the competant authority, under the then darkhast rules, by an order made on 15-1-1948. One of the conditions of the grant was that the grantee shall not alienate the said land to any one. However, by a registered sale deed on 14-9-1965, the grantee sold the said land to respondent-3 Basappa.

(2.) After coming into the force of Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfers of Certain Lands) Act, 1978 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), Petitioners 1 and 2 approached the Assistant Commissioner seeking relief Under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act. The learned Assistant Commissioner having notified both the parties and having held the enquiry passed an order under Section 4 of the Act by which he declared that the said transfer was null and void. He further declared that the applicantrantee shall be entitled for the restoration of the land under Section 5 of the Act. Aggrieved by the said order of the Assistant Commissioner the III respondent Basappa appealed before the Deputy Commissioner, Shimoga. The Deputy Commissioner, allowing the appeal, reversed the order of the Assistant Commissioner. He recorded a finding that the sale of the land in question could not be said to be void and according to him the transfer of the granted land was after the expiry of 10 years and therefore the view taken by the Assistant Commissioner was bad in law. in that view, the application of the petitioners came to be rejected. it is this order of the Deputy Commissioner that is called in question in this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.

(3.) Smt. Gowri, learned Counsel for the Petitioners, took me through the impugned order of the Deputy Commissioner and urged that the Deputy Commissioner was in error in reaching the conclusion that the condition relating to the nonalienation incorporated in the grant of land was for 10 years, in as much as according to her, the Rule under which the land came to be granted in 1948 provided that the grantee shall not alienate for ever the granted land. it is not in dispute that the land in question was granted to the father of petitioners on 15 1-1948 That being so, the law governing the grant of land was the one that was then in force.