SAROJANI Vs. LAND TRIBUNAL TRIVANDRUM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There are two writ petitioners in this original petition. They are in occupation of two separate kudikidappus situated in two plots comprised in one survey No. 313 of Muttathara Village. They had filed two separate applications -- Q. A. No. 1130 of 1970 and O. A. No. 1132 of 1970 -- before the Land Tribunal (LR. No. II) Trivandrum for the purchase of their kudikidappus under S.80B of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). In those applications respondents Nos. 2 and 3 herein had been impleaded as counter petitioners on the basis that the ownership of the sites of the two kudikidappus was vested in them. O. A. No. 1132 of 1970 was allowed by the Land Tribunal on 17-7-1972. Before a certificate of purchase was issued in that case and while O. A. No. 1130 of 1970 was still pending the 3rd respondent herein filed an application before the Land Tribunal - O. A. No. 273 of 1972-purporting to be one under S.77 of the Act praying for shifting both the writ petitioners from the respective kudikidappus to alternate sites offered to them in that application. The Land Tribunal by its order Ext. P1 dated 23rd July, 1973 allowed that application and directed the shifting of the kudikidappus of the two writ petitioners subject to certain conditions regarding payment of shifting charges and the transfer of ownership of the alternate site etc. The petitioners have come up to this court with this writ petition seeking to quash Ext. P1.

(2.) Counsel for the petitioners submitted at the very outset that a manifest illegality has been committed by the Land Tribunal in entertaining a single application for the purpose of shifting two separate kudikidappus occupied by different persons under different arrangements entered into with the owner, particularly when separate applications for the purchase of those kudikidappus had been filed before the Tribunal by the concerned kudikidappukars. Another point, which was urged equally strenuously by the learned advocate for the petitioners, was that the Land Tribunal had completely abdicated its functions by relegating the function of deciding the main issues arising in the case to the Revenue Inspector who bad inspected the property and submitted the report as per Ext. C1.

(3.) I find there is force in both the contentions taken by the learned advocate for the writ petitioners. The mere fact that the two purchase applications happened to be pending before the same Tribunal and that the land owner concerned in those applications happened to be the same person would not justify the procedure adopted by the Land Tribunal of permitting a single application to be filed by the land owner for shifting the occupants of the two distinct kudikidappus who had filed the separate purchase applications. O. A. No. 273 of 1972 filed by the 3rd respondent herein was, therefore, manifestly defective and the Land Tribunal ought not to have entertained it or adjudicated upon the prayer for shifting contained therein. On this ground itself this writ petition has to be allowed.