SIVAGANGA SAMASTHANAM DEVASTHANAM HAVING ITS DEVASTHANAM MANAGERS OFFICE Vs. SPECIAL COMMISSIONER AND COMMISSIONER OF LAND ADMINISTRATION CLIEPAUK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE these writ petitions arise out of a common order of the respondents 1 to 4 they are being disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) SIVAGANGA Samasthanam Devasthanam has moved this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for writs in the nature of certiorari calling for the entire records of the first respondent comprised in his proceedings in pa. mu. (1) 498/84 dated 28.5.1985, that of the third respondent in Roc. A3/31472/82 dated 10.2.1983 and that of the fourth respondent in H.S.D.A. No. 106/90 dated 16.5.81 and quash the said proceedings.

(3.) THE law staled as above in 1980 T.L.N.J. 195 cited supra, is of no avail to the respondents in this case. It is not a case where any issue as to the title of the particular-Devasthanam has been adjudicated in accordance with law and there is no plea that the true owner i.e., the Government evicted the 5th respondent and after evicting them, admitted them as tenants under it. It is a case, in my view, in which it should be clearly understood that the revenue authorities will have no right to adjudicate the dispute of title and if there is any claim for the Government that the property stood vested in it under the Act, it must get it adjudicated in accordance with law. So far as the plea of paramount title is concerned, that could be set up by the 5th respondent only in any action in Court by the petitioner and not before the Revenue authorities. Nothing has been shown to me to accept that the Revenue authorities who decided the dispute of title were competent in law to decide such a dispute. THE first respondent has rather acted in a curious manner. While respondents 2, 3 and 4 heard the parties and went into the question of title, the first respondent decided to do it without even issuing any notice to the petitioner and without affording any opportunity of being heard. THE order of the first respondent is in the teeth of the well-known principle of natural justice that no one should be made to suffer or visited with a civil consequence unless he is provided with adequate opportunity of being heard. His order for the said reason is without jurisdiction.