STATE OF BIHAR Vs. SUDHA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Shri Sarvesh Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the State of Bihar who contends that the learned Single Judge has overlooked the fact that in view of the notification dated 2nd of December, 1955 as published on 25 th of January, 1956, the land which stood declared as protected forest in terms of Section 29 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 could not be claimed by the respondent-petitioners as their private occupancy raiyati land. For this, some documents have sought to be introduced by way of a supplementary affidavit in this appeal that were not filed before the learned Single Judge along with the counter affidavit of the appellant. The supplementary affidavit dated 13th March, 2019 states that during the cadastral survey the land was indicated as forest land, and even otherwise there was nothing to indicate that when the said land came to be utilized by the Forest Department for fresh transplantation, the respondent-petitioners were ever in occupancy of the said land.

(2.) What we find is that the counter affidavit filed in the writ petition states that the respondent-petitioners appear to have occupied the land with an intention to grab forest land by sowing horse gram (Kurthi) thereon which was a barren land, and upon being objected to, the respondent-petitioners have come up trying to substantiate their claim on the strength of a sale-deed of the year 1918 and on the basis of such documents which have been described in Paragraph 13 as forged and fabricated documents.

(3.) On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent-petitioners submits that the respondent-petitioners had filed a true copy of the original sale-deed duly registered in 1918 indicating the acquisition of title over the land by the ancestors of the respondent-petitioners and not only this there were rent receipts in support thereof.