MUKTI MUKHERJEE Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Important legal question that has been raised and this Court is called upon to answer in this second appeal is whether the Bar of jurisdiction of Civil Courts as contemplated in 14X of West Bengal Land Reforms Act, puts a blanket prohibition to decide questions of title in a spit by an aggrieved person who was neither a party to a proceeding under Chapter II-B of the said Act, nor whose rights were determined in such proceeding by the authorities specified thererin

(2.) To have a proper appraisal of the point of law, it is necessary to narrate the case of the plaintiff-appellants in brief as follows: According to the plaintiffs, the property in suit as described in Schedule "A" of the plaint, was wrongly and illegally declared to have vested in the State Government on the basis of a proceeding No. "74/171 of 1977" under Section 14T of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, thereafter to be referred to as the Act against Saila Bala Chatterjee, widow of late Taranath Chatterjee. The said Saila Bala Chatterjee was shown to be a big raiyat hiring lands in excess of the ceiling as recorded in the R.S. record-of-rights. It was alleged by the plaintiffs that the authority in question came to a finding regarding the computation of the ceiling area of Saila Bala Chatterjee, on the basis of erroneous entries in the record-of-rights, regarding the properties mentioned in Schedules "C" and "D" of the plaint, showing Saila Bala Chatterjee to have 1/7th share in such lands. Allegedly, the said Saila Bala Chatterjee had no manner of right, title and interest in the lands of those two Schedules as because the properties in Schedule "C" were purchased by a registered sale deed dated 15.101949, from one Kamala Bala Debi wife of late Sushil Chakra5orty, by Shri Sudhir Chatterjee, the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiffs and his five other brothers, the pro-defendants, who are the sons of late Taranath Chatterjee. With regard to the property in "D" Schedule, it was asserted that the said lands belonged to Taranath Chatterjee who died in 1935, that is, long before the present Hindu Succession Act came into force, leaving his six sons including the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiffs as his only heirs and the widow Saila Bala Chatterjee thereby did not inherit anything in such property though wrongly recorded in the record-of-rights to have 1/7th share in the same. It was, therefore, urged that such erroneously recorded shares of Saila Bala, Chatterjee in "C" and "D" Schedule lands been excluded for the purpose of computation of the ceding area of Saila Bala Chatterjee then the lands of "A" Schedule would not have vested in the State and the ceiling limit of Saila Bala Chatterjee as shown in Schedule "B" would have come dowry to 8.24 acres, a permissible limit within Section 14-M of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act. The plaintiffs therefore claimed for a declaration of their title to 1/6th share in "A" Schedule lands and for further declarations that the entries in the record-of-rights are wrong and that "A" Schedule lands, cannot and have not vested in the state.

(3.) The State of West Bengal contested the suit by filing a written statement contending inter alia that Saila Bala Chatterjee, widow of Taranath Chatterjee was a be landholder having lands more than the prescribed family ceiling for which a proceeding under Sections 14-M and 14-T of the said Act was started against her and as because she did not file any return in 7A Form, for retention of her surplus lands as mentioned in Schedule "A" of the plaint and some other land the same accordingly vested to the State after contested hearing.