GANGLA Vs. MANGAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CIRCUMSTANCES leading to this revision against the order of the Settlement Officer, Alwar, dated 30. 5. 61 are: - The opposite party, Mangal and his son Rajendra Singh, preferred an application to the Asstt. Settlement Officer, Alwar, that the disputed Khasra Nos. 1720, 1721, 1722 and 1723 situated in village Machadi Mewan have been continuing to be in their cultivatory possession ever since Smt. 2014 and still the Settlement Parcha had been given to the applicant Gangla. It was also alleged that a case was pending against the applicant about that land in the court of the Asstt. Collector, Rajgarh; that even from Khasra Girdawari Chausala the disputed land was established to belong to the opposite party. The prayer was that the Parcha Settlement should be changed in the name of the opposite party. The Asstt. Settlement Officer held an enquiry and ordered the correction to be made as applied for. The settlement Parcha was granted to Shri Mangal Singh and the Parcha prepared in the name of the applicants was ordered to be struck off. An appeal was preferred against this order to the Settlement Officer, Alwar, by the applicants, but with no success. Hence this revision.

(2.) A preliminary objection has been raised against the maintainability of this revision on the ground that the order of the Settlement Officer was appealable to the Settlement Commissioner. True, vide Sec. 76 (b) of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act 1955 (hereinafter referred to as the Act),an appeal can be heard against the order passed in appeal by the Settlement Officer to the Settlement Commissioner. The question is, however, whether a revision cannot be heard without there having been made first an appeal, as provided above, under any circumstances whatsoever. The revising powers of the Board are laid down by Sec. 84 of the Act. They can be exercised even in cases connected with settlement in which no appeal lies to the Board if the officer by whom the case was decided appears to have exercised the jurisdiction not vested in him or to have failed to exercise the jurisdiction so vested or to have acted in the exercise thereof illegally or with material irregularity. I do not, however, intend to convey that in every case the parties are free to bye-pass the appellate authority and bring a revision directly. But still it is not quite an inflexible rule of law and the Board can examine a case brought to it, if it deems fit. This has been a practice followed throughout and, therefore, we proceed to examine the revision application as it is.