P.S. KONA ANAL S/O. LATE MOLOK ANAL, CHIEF OF CHANDAL KHUMAN VILLAGE, P.S. CHANDAL, DISTRICT TENGNOUPEL, MANIPUR Vs. STATE OF MANIPUR AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner herein filed the suit No. O.S. 2 of 1978 before the learned Munsiff, Thoubal which is pending for trial. The suit was for a declaration that his village known as Chandel village is a hill village and as it was wrongly surveyed and recorded as plot No. 3011 under village No. 78 and accordingly the plaintiff-petitioner prayed that the said survey was null and void. Further prayer was also made for permanent injunction etc. The plaintiff-petitioner also prayed for a temporary injunction restraining the respondents from evicting him and his co-villagers from a certain plot of land which is situated in the middle of the hill of his village, the provisions of Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 are not applicable and as such the plaintiff and others cannot be evicted by taking recourse to the provisions of the said Act. Though ex parte interim injunction was granted, it was subsequently vacated by the learned trial Court and the learned Lower Appellate Court also upheld the order.

(2.) I find from records the question whether the suit land is a part of hill village was agitated before the Revenue Authority and the higher authority, namely, the Revenue Tribunal upheld the decision of the Subordinate Officer that the suit land is not a part of the hill village. Both the learned Courts below also refused to grant injunction. They did not find prima facie case particularly in view of the decision of the Revenue Authority.

(3.) The first point that needs consideration is to what extent the revision Court can go in view of the fact that the learned trial Court as well as the learned Lower Appellate Court did not find any prima facie case. In Manick Chandra Nandy Vs. Debdas Nandy and Others, AIR 1986 SC 446 , it was held that the exercise of revisional jurisdiction is confined to questions of jurisdiction, while in the first appeal the Court is free to decide all questions of law and fact which arise in the case, in the exercise of its revisional jurisdiction the High Court is not entitled to re-examine or re-assess the evidence on record and substitute its own findings on the facts for those of the subordinate Court. It was also held that in determining the correctness the decision reached by the subordinate Court the High Court may at times have to go into a jurisdictional question of law or fact, that is, it may have to decide collateral questions upon the ascertainment of which the decision as to jurisdiction depends. In the case in hand, there is no such collateral question to be decided. In Sher Singh Vs. Joint Director of Consolidation and others, AIR 1978 SC 1341 , it was held that even if there is erroneous decision on the question of fact or of law, exercise of revisional jurisdiction is not justified. In Municipal Corporation of Delhi Vs. Suresh Chandra Jaipuria and another, AIR 1976 SC 2621 , the Apex Court held that interference by Hight Court under section 115 C.P.C. is not justified when the findings of the two Courts below are concurrent.