DEEP CHAND JAIN Vs. BOARD OF REVENUE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this group of writ petitions the main questions raised are common. The facts requisite for the decision of the common questions are also similar. All these can conveniently be decided by one judgment.

(2.) THE petitions are under Article 226 of the Constitution. THEy pray that the orders of the authorities constituted under the U. P. Large Land Holdings Tax Act, 1957 be quashed.

(3.) TILL this decision came, the Board of Revenue had taken the view that the holding tax has to be levied on a landholder for the entire area recorded in his name or in the names of the members of his family, in the revenue papers; and that it is immaterial whether any transfer has taken place unless the transfer is followed by an entry in the revenue records in favour of the transferee. (See Abdul Rashid Khan v. State, 1961 RD 118). This view was over-ruled by the High Court in Mohan Lal's case, 1962 All LJ 842. Desai, C. J. speaking for the Bench observed: "What is clear from Section 4 is that the petitioner was liable to be assessed to holding tax on the annual value of the aggregate of all land held or occupied by him on 1-7-1957. It is immaterial whether he held or occupied it in his own name or in the names of his sons. The question in whose name the land was held or occupied will not arise if it was not held by him..... The Commissioner and the Board of Revenue have clearly gone wrong in taking everything upon the entries in the village records. The words "whether in his own name etc." did not make entries in the village records relevant when he was not found to have title or possession....... A landholder who has neither title or possession over land, cannot certainly be said to occupy it merely because his name is recorded in the village records, but he also cannot be said to hold it. The lekhal's act of recording his name wrongly in the village records cannot be said to be his act of holding the land. The essential question to be considered was whether the land was held or occupied by the petitioner on 1-7-1957 or not; if it was answered in the affirmative it did not matter whether his name was recorded or his son's, and if it was answered in the negative, no further question arose and the land was not to be included in his land holding." In effect this decision ruled that revenue records are not decisive for finding whether a holding was held or occupied by the landholder; the reality has to be found out.