THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY Writ Petition No.17562 of 2010 DT.01.11.2010 Between: Majjiga Eswara Reddy … Petitioner And The State of A.P., rep.by its District Collector, Kadapa District, Kadapa and others … Respondents Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.V.R.Reddy Kovvuri Counsel for respondents: AGP for Revenue The Court made the following ORDER: ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a mandamus to declare the action of respondent No.4 in refusing to entertain sale deed for registration in respect of land admeasuring Acs.2.89 cents out of Acs.5.78 cents in Survey No.331 of Ananthapuram Village fields, Lakkireddypalli Mandal, Kadapa District, as illegal and arbitrary. The petitioner sought for a consequential direction to respondent No.4 to receive and register the document. I have heard Sri V.R.Reddy Kovvuri, learned counsel for the petitioner, and the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue. The petitioner averred that the land admeasuring Acs.5.78 cents in the above-mentioned survey number originally belonged to one late Majjiga Veeranagi Reddy @ Veeranagaiah, that the said land was partitioned among his family members through registered partition deed, dated 03.04.1958, and that the petitioner’s father and the paternal father jointly purchased the said land through a registered sale deed, dated 27.12.1996. It is the further case of the petitioner that his father and paternal uncle through a registered exchange deed, dated 17.01.1985, have exchanged the property, by which, the above- mentioned land has fallen to the share of his father and that through oral partition between him and his brother, the extent of Acs.2.89 cents fell to his share and that the record of right was mutated in his name and pattadar pass books and title deeds were also issued to him. When the petitioner sought to sell the said property and present the document on 17.05.2010 before respondent No.4, he refused to receive the same on the ground that the property is included in the prohibited list of lands communicated by respondent No.3. Separate counter affidavits have been filed by respondent Nos.3 and 4. For the purpose of disposal of this writ petition, the counter affidavit filed by respondent No.3 is material. It is stated in the counter affidavit that the land admeasuring Acs.5.78 cents comprised in Survey No.331 is originally classified as Government AW land as per R.S.R., of Ananthapuram Village and that the name of the pattadar is not recorded against the survey number. Accordingly, the land is treated as purely Government land. This Court in Shaik Dudekula Pyari Jan @ Lal Bi and others v. The Revenue Divisional Officer, Madanapalli, Office of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Punganur Road, Madanapalli, Chittoor District and others[1], while dealing with identical plea, held as under: “In the present case, except for stating that entries in the Village Account R.S.R. of Doddipalli Village indicate the lands in Survey Nos.1969/2, 1972, 1969/1B and 1971 as Government lands, there is no other basis for the revenue authorities to stake a claim over the lands. To the contrary, the evidence on record, being registered transactions dating back to 1942, 1938, 1959 and 1972, as the case may be, clearly negates the unilateral claim of the revenue authorities that this land is Government land. It is of course for the Government to assert and prove its title if it chooses to do so, in a properly constituted proceeding before the appropriate forum in accordance with law. Without doing so, it is not open to the revenue authorities or the registration authorities to deny persons claiming rights over such land on the basis of mere revenue entries. The action of the respondents in treating the subject land as Government land and the action of the registration authorities in refusing to receive and register documents in respect of this land is therefore unsustainable in law. I find support for my view in the Judgments of this Court in P.Suresh v. A.P. State and others [2009 (3) ALD 802]; K.M.Kamulla Basha v. District Collector, Chittoor [W.P.Nos.27249 & 28393 of 2007 dated 16.02.2009]; Meda Subbarayudu v. Sub-Registrar, Rayachoty [W.P.No.11675 of 2008 dated 30.07.2008] and S.Zakhir v. District Collector, Anantapur [W.P.No.19419 of 2008 dated 16.02.2009].” In my opinion, the above reasoning of this Court applies in all fours to the present case, as the facts are identical to the case disposed of by the learned Judge. For the above-mentioned reasons, the writ petition is allowed. Respondent No.4 is directed to entertain the documents presented by the petitioner for registration without treating the land as belonging to the Government. However, this order does not preclude the Government and its functionaries from asserting their title over the property in an appropriate Court of law. As a sequel to disposal of the writ petition, W.P.M.P.No.22185 of 2010 filed by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. (C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J) Date: 01.11.2010 VGB [1] W.P.No.6016 of 2010, dated 02.07.2010