RAMASWAMY Vs. TAHSILDAR SAIDAPET TALUK MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in W. P. Mp / 665 of 1991 is the appellant in this writ appeal. The respondents in the writ petition are the respondents in this Writ Appeal. For the sake of convenience, we are referring to the parties as per their nomenclature in the writ petition.

(2.) The petitioner came to this court by way of the writ petition, projecting the, following prayer :

(3.) The matter, when it came up for admission earlier, we deemed fit to order notice of motion, taking note of the point urged by Mr. S.Krishnaswamy, learned counsel for the Petitioner, that the notice under S. 7 of the Act was not served in the manner prescribed in S. 25 of the Tamil Nadu Revenue Recovery Act, 1864, or in such other manner as the State Government by Rules or Orders under S. 8 may direct, and refusal as such even that is the factual position cannot be taken to be proper service of the notice under S. 7 of the Act. Mr. M. A. Sadanand, learned Government Pleader took notice for respondents 1 to 4 and Mr. T. K. Ramkumar took notice for respondent 5. The learned Government Pleader took time to get at the relevant records to find out as to how the position with reference to service of notice u/ S. 7 of the Act is reflected therein. Today when the matter is taken up, learned Government Pleader, after perusal of the records, submits that there is only an endorsement in the records that notice u/S. 7 of the Act was refused by the petitioner. Thus, we are obliged to examine the question as to whether service could be held to be sufficient, taking note of the endorsement of refusal found in the records. The relevant part of S.7 of the Act with reference to service of notice under that provision reads as follows :