IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA LPA No.954 of 2008 Mukul Jha, son of Sri Durganath Jha, village P O – Mangrauni, P.S. – Rajnagar, District – Madhubani ………Petitioner/Appellant Versus 1. The State Of Bihar 2. The Collector-cum-District Magistrate, Madhubani 3. The Deputy Collector (Land acquisition) Madhubani 4. The Deputy Collector (land reforms) Madhubani ………Respondent/Respondents ----------- For the appellant : Mr. Chandrashekhar, Senior Advocate Mr. Pankaj Kumar Sinha, Advocate For the Respondent nos. 1 to 4 : Mr. Rajnish Kant, J.C. to S.C. III (Ceiling) -------- P R E S E N T Hon'ble the Chief Justice & Hon'ble Mr. Justice Kishore K. Mandal ------------ Dated, the 3rd December, 2008. Appeal suffers from delay of 31 days for which, an application (I.A. No. 7149 of 2008) has been made. Even if we condone the delay, we are of the view that the appeal does not deserve to be admitted. 2. It is true that two notifications under section 15(1) of Bihar Land Ceiling Act, 1961 (for short, „the Act‟) came to be issued; first notification in the year 1989 and the second notification in the year 2005 with regard to the petitioner‟s holding. There is no dispute that as per the determination of ceiling area, and the two notifications - 2 - issued in the year 1989 as well as in the year 2005, the appellant is entitled to retain 90 acres of land. Although the senior counsel for the appellant sought to urge that the appellant was not given any option under section 9 of the Act, the fact of the matter is that way back in the year 1993 option was exercised by the appellant. 3. The Single Judge has held that the option exercised by the appellant has become final and cannot be disturbed. We concur with the view of the Single Judge. The Single Judge has also clarified that if the land or any part of the land for which option has been given by the petitioner in the year 1993 has not been distributed to a landless person, the petitioner is entitled to exchange of such land so as to enable him to retain 90 acres of land. The following observations made by the Single Judge are pertinent in this regard: “However, by way of abundant precaution, the petitioner is given this much of liberty that if any of the land for which it had already exercised any option in the year 1993 has been included in the excess land to be acquired but has not been actually distributed to any person, the Collector of the district to this extent shall examine the 15(1) notification and in case any of such land which can be exchanged by allowing him to keep under his share and given the equal amount of land which have not been distributed can only be allowed to be retained by the petitioner.” 4. In our view, aforesaid observation fully protects the interest of the appellant in as much as he is entitled to hold 90 acres of land as per option exercised by him in the year 1993 and if any part of - 3 - the land opted by him in the year 1993 has been included in excess land, it has been observed that Collector shall examine this aspect and permit exchange of land to that extent. 5. Letters Patent Appeal, with the aforesaid observations, is disposed of. This disposes of I.A. No. 7149 of 2008 as well. R.M. Lodha, CJ Kishore K. Mandal, J. Anil/