KUNDAN SINGH Vs. 1ST ADDL DISTRICT JUDGE BIJNORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ONE Govinda was the owner and Bhumidhar of plot No. 183/2 situate in village Dhanauri Kunwar, Pargana Akabarabad, District Bijnore. He on 15.1.1985 executed a sale-deed for a sum of Rs. 6.000/- in respect of 1-13-0 bigha of the aforesaid plot in favour of Kundan Singh, the present petitioner. Subsequent thereto, another sale-deed was executed by Govinda in favour of Raghuveer Singh, Sher Singh etc.

(2.) THE subsequent purchases i.e. Raghuveer Singh and Sher Singh filed a suit No. 78 of 1995 in the Court of Munsif, Najibabad that the sale-deed executed by Govinda in favour of Kundan Singh on 15.1.1985 may be declared null and void as it is liable to be cancelled and it has no effect on the rights of the plaintiff. After exchange of the pleadings, a preliminary issue as regards to the maintainability of the suit before the Civil Court being Issue No. 3 was framed. THE trial Court by its order dated 11th December, 1997 found that the name of the petitioner who was defendant in the suit, has already been mutated in the revenue record on the basis of the sale-deed in his favour, therefore, the proper forum for adjudication of the rights of the parties is Revenue Court under Section 229-B of the U.P.Z.A. and L.R. Act. THE trial Court by the said order directed to return the plaint to the plaintiff for presentation before the Revenue Court.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance upon a judgment of the Apex Court in Kamla Prasad v. Sri Krishna Pathak, (2007) 1 CRC 506, wherein the Supreme Court has held that in such facts situation only Revenue Court can record a finding as to whether the sale-deed executed by original tenure-holder is valid or not. THE controversy involved in the present writ petition is squarely covered by the aforesaid judgment of the Apex Court. Relevant paras 13 and 14 of the report are reproduced below: "13. On second question also, in our view, Courts below were right in coming to the conclusion that legality or otherwise of insertion of names of purchasers in Record of Rights and deletion of name of the plaintiff from such record can only be decided by Revenue Court since the names of the purchasers had already been entered into. Only Revenue Court can record a finding whether such an action Was in accordance with law or not and it cannot be decided by a Civil Court. 14. In this connection, the learned counsel for the appellant rightly relied upon a decision of this Court in Shri Ram and another v. 1st Addl. Distt. Judge and others, JT 2001 (2) SC 573 : 2001 (1) CRC 417 (SC). In Shri Ram, 'A', the original tenure-holder of the land sold it to 'B' by a registered sale-deed and also delivered possession and the name of the purchaser was entered into Revenue Records after mutation. According to the plaintiff, sale-deed was forged and was liable to be cancelled. In the light of the above fact, this Court held that it was only a Civil Court which could entertain, try and decide such suit. THE Court, after considering relevant case law on the point, held that where a recorded tenure-holder having a title and in possession of property files a suit in Civil Court for cancellation of sale-deed obtained by fraud or impersonation could not be directed to institute such suit for declaration in Revenue Court, the reason being that in such a case, prima facie, the title of the recorded tenure-holder is not under cloud of title. He does not require declaration of his title to the land."