STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. MAHMAD YUSUF AHMED NAGANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution the State has challenged the judgment and order dated 28-3-1995 of the Gujarat Revenue Tribunal allowing the Review Application in respect of the Tribunal's order dated 13-2-1994 by which the Tribunal had held that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear the review application and further setting aside the order dated 16-5-1994 of the Collector under the provisions of Section 75 of the Saurashtra Gharkhed Tenancy Settlement and Agricultural Lands Ordinance (hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance).

(2.) The respondents herein purchased the land in question in village Sasan, Tal. Talala, District Junagadh in March 1990. Mutation entries in the record of rights were certified in June 1990. However, the Collector issued show cause notice on the ground that the respondents had no agricultural land at the time of purchase of the lands and therefore, the transactions were in violation of section 54 of the Ordinance which prohibits sale of agricultural lands to non-agriculturists. The respondents raised a defence that they were already holding agricultural lands in the State of Maharashtra and that the provision which was earlier found in Section 63 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, applicable to the Bombay area of the State of Gujarat requiring the purchaser of the agricultural land to hold agricultural land within 8 Kms of the land intended to be purchased, was not applicable to the Saurashtra area which was covered by the Ordinance. The Collector, however, over ruled the objection and passed the order dated 16-5-1994 declaring the sale in question to be invalid and also set aside the revenue entries in question. The Tribunal initially dismissed the revision application against the said order of the Collector on the ground that it had no jurisdiction. However, subsequently, on review the Tribunal by the impugned order allowed the Revision Application and held in favour of the respondent purchasers.

(3.) At the time of hearing of this petition the learned Assistant Government Pleader has submitted that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear the Revision Application against the order of the Collector in as much as the Collector had passed the order under the Bombay Land Revenue Code for setting aside the entries in question. The contention cannot be accepted for the simple reason that the order setting aside the entries in question was merely a consequential order pursuant to the finding given by the Collector that the transactions in question were invalid. The order which was really under challenge was the order of the Collector holding the sale transactions to be invalid and therefore, the Tribunal did have the jurisdiction to hear the revision application.