BHASKAR MOHARANA Vs. ARJUN MOHARANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Article 226 Of the Constitution against the order of the Collector of Ganjam in Village Officer's Appeal No. 1 of 1956 dismissing a suit brought by the petitioner under Section 13 of the Madras Hereditary Village Offices Act, .1895 (Madras Act III of 1895) hereinafter referred to as the Act for recovery of possession of a black-Smith inam lands in villages Bhimpur and Pandrakhalli in Ganjam district where the provisions of the Act are still in force.

(2.) The said ground on which the Collector dismissed the suit as non- maintainable was that in view of the recent decision of the Supreme Court in AIR 1961 SC 564, Dasaratha Rama Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh, the hereditary principle on which succession to the inam lands attached to a village office was regulated under the Act, offended Article 14 of the Constitution, and as such it was void. Mr. Panda for the petitioner however urged that the said decision related to the office of Village Munsif which was fundamentally different from the office of village blacksmith and that consequently it would not apply here. This is the main point for decision in this writ application.

(3.) The preamble to the Act says that the object of the Act is: