UDAI NARAIN Vs. STATE OF UP. AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE have heard learned Counsel for the Appellant at length on this appeal and we find that this appeal has no force at all.

(2.) THE writ petition filed by the Appellant, which has been dismissed by the learned Single Judge, related to proceedings in which an order was made by the Settlement Officer of Consolidation on 25.2.1963. It was against the interest of the present Appellant. The Appellant filed a second appeal before a Deputy Director of Consolidation on 16.3.1963, purporting to exercise his right of appeal Under Sub -section (5) of Section 21 of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act. In the meantime, the Act "had been amended and Sub -section (5) of Section 21 of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act had been deleted. The Amendment Act further laid down that appeals filed before that Act came into force would continue to be heard as competent appeals but no fresh appeal was to be filed thereafter even though the right to file a second appeal under that provision may have accrued earlier. The Amendment Act came into force on 8.3.1963. This amendment Act thus, by specific and clear provision, took away the right of appeal which the Appellant purported to exercise on 16.3.1963. On that date the second appeal was incompetent and was, therefore, not at all entertainable by the Deputy Director of Consolidation. The Deputy Director of Consolidation however, wrongly entertained it and, in fact, allowed the appeal. Subsequently, a revision Under Section 48 was filed which revision lay to the Director of Consolidation but which, under the various notifications, could be heard even by a Deputy Director of Consolidation. Another Deputy Director of Consolidation, therefore, heard the revision and held that the previous order of the Deputy Director of Consolidation, on the basis of the second appeal filed by the Appellant Under Sub -section (5) of Section 21 of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act, was null and void because no appeal lay. He, therefore, proceeded to hold that that order could be ignored, so that the subordinate consolidation authorities had to act on the basis that the either order of the Settlement Officer of Consolidation dated 25.2 1963, was an effective order. He, therefore, proceeded to make a direction to the appropriate consolidation authority to correct the papers so as to bring them in line with the decision of the Settlement Officer of Consolidation.

(3.) THE second point urged by learned Counsel was that, when the Deputy Director of Consolidation, on the second "occasion, passed his impugned order, he exceeded his jurisdiction inasmuch as he set aside the earlier order made by another Deputy Director of Consolidation on the second appeal which was filed by the Appellant on 16.3.1963. The submission was that a Deputy Director of Consolidation could not exercise powers Under Section 48 of the UP Consolidation of Holdings Act so as to set aside a previous order of an authority who was exercising the same powers as he was himself exercising and who was not subordinate to him. This argument is totally misconceived because the order of the Dy. Director of Consolidation now impugned shows that he, in fact, at no stage even purported to set aside the previous order of the Deputy Director of Consolidation. All he did was to consider the nature of that order where upon he came to the finding that that order was null and void because the previous Deputy Director of Consolidation ab initio had no jurisdiction to entertain the second appeal and make that order. The order being null and void, it could be ignored by any authority. In fact, it could even be ignored by a subordinate authority, to say nothing of the authority of the same status. The Deputy Director of Consolidation also ignored it and, consequently, when exercising his powers, he made the appropriate order of directing the subordinate consolidation authority who had wrongly made, the amaldaramad in the papers in pursuance of that null and void order of the Deputy Director of Consolidation and directed that authority to correct the records again in accordance with the correct legal position.