GURUCHARAN SWAIN Vs. COMMISSIONER, CONSOLIDATION, ORISSA, CUTTACK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in this Writ Petition seeks to assail the order dated 24.7.1996 (Annexure -1) passed by the learned Commissioner, Consolidation, Orissa, Cuttack in Consolidation Revision Case No.1511 of 1994 confirming the order dated 27.8.1994 (Annexure -7) passed by the learned Deputy Director, Consolidation, Range -1 Cuttack in Appeal Case No.52 of 1994. However, they have prayed to quash the orders under Annexure -1 and 8 but then it appears that no document has been marked as Annexure -8 and in fact the petitioners want to quash Annexure -7 i.e. the order passed in Appeal Case No.52 of 1994 by the Deputy Director.

(2.) THE petitioners and opposite party No.3 are defendants of a common ancestor i.e. Krushna Swain. Krushna had three sons being Nalu, Balakrushna and Balu. Petitioner Nos.1 to 6 are descendants of the branch of Nalu and petitioner Nos.7 to 10 are descendants of the branch of Balakrushna. Opposite party No.3 is the sole descendant of Balus branch. To appreciate the inter se relationship it will be prudent to refer to the genealogy of the families which is given below : -

(3.) IN the year 1990 the village in which the lands are situated was brought within the purview of Orissa Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation of Land Act, 1972. Thereafter, opposite party No.3 filed Objection Case Nos. 1047/91, 1048/91, 1049/91 and 1069/91 inter alia praying for partition of Schedule 'A properties. He also prayed to record the lands more fully described under Schedule 'B exclusively in his name. The Consolidation Officer, Salipur issued notices and heard all the cases analogously. After considering the submissions made, documents produced and after conducting spot enquiry and consulting with Consolidation members the objection filed by opposite party No.3 was rejected and the records prepared by the Settlement authorities were confirmed. The order dated 30.12.1993 passed by the Consolidation Officer accepting the genealogy given by the parties and dismissing all the Objection Cases is annexed as Annexure -6 to the Writ Petition.