IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY NINETH DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO:17578 of 2005 Between: Namburi Trinada Karuna Kumar, s/o Subba Rao, r/o Dummugudem Village and Mandal, Khammam District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Dummugudem Mandal, Khammam District. 2 Sri Namburi Veerabhadra Rao, s/o (late) Satyanarayana Murthy, r/o Dummugudem Village and Mandal, Khammam District. 3 Smt.Pendyala Kusumamba, w/o (late) Dhana Murthy, r/o Dummugudem Village and Mandal, Khammam District. 4 Smt.Velpuri Laxmi, r/o Dummugudem Village and Mandal, Khmmam District. 5 The Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, A.P.,Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.P.V.RAMANA Counsel for Respondent Nos.1 to 5:AGP FOR REVENUE Counsel for Respondent No.2: MR. R.KAMESWARA RAO The Court made the following : ORDER: At the interlocutory stage, the writ petition is taken up for hearing and disposal with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties. This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of certiorari to quash orders, dated 07.06.1979, 02.03.2000 and 07.04.2004 passed by the Settlement Oﬃcer, Bhadrachalam, the Special Commissioner and Director of Settlements, Hyderabad, and the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, respectively. By order, dated 07.06.1979, the Settlement Oﬃcer, Venkatapuram Unit, Bhadrachalam Head Quarters, directed grant of ryotwari patta for the land admeasuring Hecs.3.94 Ares to Sri N.Satyanarayana Murthy, the father of respondent No.2 and for an extent of Hec.1.40 Ares in favour of Sri N.Subba Rao, the father of the petitioner. The said order has become ﬁnal, as no appeal was ﬁled. 14 years thereafter, the petitioner ﬁled an appeal along with an application for condonation of delay before the Special Commissioner and Director of Settlements. The said application for condonation of delay was rejected and consequently, the appeal was dismissed. Questioning the said order, the petitioner ﬁled an appeal under Section 9(3) of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation 2 of 1970 before the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, respondent No.5, who by his order, dated 07.04.2004 dismissed the said appeal. I have perused the orders passed by the Special Commissioner and Director of Settlements and the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration. The appeal ﬁled by the petitioner was dismissed on the ground that the same was ﬁled with inordinate delay of 14 years. Having carefully considered the reasoning contained in the order passed by the Special Commissioner and Director of Settlements, I do not ﬁnd any error in the same. The law is well settled that the unexplained long delay defeats the rights of the parties. The petitioner failed to explain the inordinate delay of nearly 14 years in ﬁling the appeal. The orders passed by the Special Commissioner and Director of Settlements and the Chief Commissioner being unexceptionable, I do not ﬁnd any reason to interfere with the same. The writ petition is, therefore, dismissed. As a sequel to dismissal of main petition, interim order, dated 09.08.2005 is vacated, WPMP.No.22373 of 2005 is dismissed and WVMP.No.192 of 2006 is disposed of as infructuous. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 29th OCTOBER, 2008. kvni