BASGIT LOHAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD counsel for the petitioners and the counsel representing the State. No one appears for respondent no. 11.

(2.) THIS writ petition arises from a consolidation proceeding, involving question of title. The private respondents filed two objections u/s. 10B of the Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956 in regard to pieces of land situate in two different, villages. The objections filed before the Consolidation Officer, Bhagwanpur were registered as Case Nos. 22 and 23 of 1979 -80. The Consolidation Officer rejected the objections by a common order, dated 27.7.1981. Against that order the respondents took the matter before the Dy. Director Consolidation in Appeal Nos. 301 and 302 of 1984 -85. The Dy. Director Consolidation allowed the appeals by a common order, dated 7.6.1984. It was then the petitioners ' turn to take the matter in revision. The petitioners filed Revision Case Nos. 1797 and 1798 of 1985 before the Director Consolidation. The two revisions were finally heard and dismissed by order, dated 1.9.1988. This writ petition is filed challenging the appellate and the revisional orders.

(3.) ONE of the primary grounds on which the order is assailed is that being a Dy. Director, he was not competent to exercise the revisional powers u/s. 35 of the Act. The point has now been settled in several cases in which the revisional orders were passed by the self same Sri K.P. Sinha as Dy. Director. In Ramotar Yadav & Ajaz Haider V/s. The State of Bihar and Others, 2001 1 PLJR 266, an Hon ble Judge of this court examined the provisions of Ss. 2(4), 34(2), 35 and the notification no. A/T -1051/57 -7445R, dated 13/19.9.1957 under which the power to hear revisions filed u/s. 35 of the Act was purportedly delegated to the Dy. Director and came to hold and find that the revisional power u/s. 35 can only be exercised either by the Director or an Additional Director/Joint Director. The revisional power cannot be exercised by a Dy. Director. Following the decision in Ramotar Yadav (supra), in a more recent case in Ram Pratap Singh and Others V/s. State of Bihar & Others, 2007 1 PLJR 57, the same view is reiterated.