ANTONIO SEBASTIAO PALHA Vs. ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has approached this Court seeking a writ of certiorari in order to quash and set aside the Judgment and Order dated 26.12.95 passed by the Deputy Collector and Sub-Divisional Officer, Panaji, Goa, thereby allowing the appeal of the respondent and the Judgment and Order dated 9.10.2000 passed by the Administrative Tribunal under which the revision application filed by the petitioner came to be dismissed and the appellate order was upheld.

(2.) THE subject matter of the petition pertains to dispute of sharing tenancy rights between the petitioner and the respondent no.4 having a checkered history of litigation which can be summed up as under:- The petitioner and the respondent are brother and sister. In the year 1972 respondent No.4 filed an application before the 3rd respondent under Section 8A of the Agricultural Tenancy Act seeking restraint against the petitioner from interfering with the alleged possession of the fourth respondent in respect of the paddy field known as �1/2Primeiro Lanco de Chamlar Grande�1/2 situated at Mercurim, Agassaim, Goa. The said application was registered as Tenancy Application No.135/72. The petitioner contested the said application and claimed that the said paddy field originally belonged to Communidade of Gauncim and it was cultivated by the parents of the petitioner and the fourth respondent. That after the death of the petitioner's father in the year 1955 the said field was transferred in the name of the petitioner's mother. In the year 1961 or thereabout the said field was auctioned and as the mother of the petitioner was not in a position to participate in the auction as she was not keeping well, it was decided that the said field be purchased and cultivated in the name of respondent No.4 with the understanding that the said field would be for the benefit of the petitioner and the respondent and since then as a fact, the said field was cultivated by the petitioner and respondent No.4 i.e. northern half of the said field was cultivated by the petitioner and the southern half by the respondent No.4.

(3.) AGGRIEVED by this, the respondent No.4 filed a revision against the said order. In revision the first respondent held that the application of the petitioner under Section 18 was time barred. Therefore he allowed the revision application by his Order dated 15.2.79 which was challenged by the petitioner in this Court by preferring Writ Petition. On 1.9.83 the learned Single Judge of this Court dismissed the Writ Petition of the petitioner on the ground that the application under Section 18 filed by the petitioner was time barred. The matter was then taken up by the petitioner by preferring Letters Patent Appeal and a Division Bench of this Court by Order dated 16.8.84 allowed the Letters Patent Appeal and while doing so was pleased to set aside the Order of 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents and remanded the matter back to the third respondent to dispose of the application under Section 18 on its merits as per directions contained in the said order. On the matter being remanded to the third respondent, the application filed by the petitioner under S.18 of the said Act was inquired into which was objected to by respondent No.4 by filing application on 5.6.86 that the 3rd respondent i.e. the Mamlatdar has no jurisdiction to entertain the application filed by the petitioner under S.18. The 3rd respondent dismissed the application filed by the 4th respondent which order was confirmed by the 2nd respondent in appeal filed by respondent No.4 against the said order, inter alia holding that the Mamlatdar has jurisdiction to entertain the application filed by the petitioner under S.18 of the Agricultural Tenancy Act and therefore on 10.1.94 after conducting the inquiry and hearing the parties, was pleased to grant the application, inter alia holding that the possession of the northern half of the suit paddy field be restored to the petitioner.