IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) PRESENT: THE HON'BLE MR. ANIL R. DAVE, THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY MONDAY, THE THIRD DAY OF AUGUST, TWO THOUSAND NINE ONLY WRIT APPEAL No.994 of 2009 Between: Suda Rama Bhadra Purushottam Rao & another. … Appellants And The State of A.P., rep., by the Joint Collector, O/o. The District Collector, Khammam & others. … Respondents Counsel for the appellant : Sri Vedula Venkataramana Counsel for respondents 1,2&6 : GP for Revenue Counsel for respondents 3&4 : Sri M.V. Pratap Reddy This Court made the following: THE HON'BLE MR. ANIL R. DAVE, THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT APPEAL No. 994 of 2009 JUDGMENT:- (Per C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J) This writ appeal is filed against order dated 07.07.2009 passed in WP.No.13285 of 2009, whereby the learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition fled by the appellants. Heard Sri Vedula Venkataramana, learned counsel for the appellants, the learned Government Pleader for Revenue for respondent Nos.1, 2 and 6 and Sri M.V.Pratap Reddy, learned counsel for respondent Nos.3 and 4. The learned counsel for the appellants have given up respondent No.5, who appeared to be a formal party, as he failed to file an appeal against the order of the Tahsildar mutating the names of the appellants in the pattadar passbooks and title deeds. The facts in nutshell are that the predecessor-in-title of the appellants, namely, late Uma Maheshwar Rao approached the Mandal Revenue Officer, Kallur Mandal, Khammam District with an application under Section 5(A) of the Andhra Pradesh (Rights in Land) and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 (for short, 'the Act') for validation of an unregistered sale deed in respect of the lands admeasuring Acs.5.25 guntas in various survey numbers of Yagnanarayanapuram Village, Kallur Mandal, Khammam District. Evidently, the said application was allowed and the sale was validated in accordance with the provisions of Section 5(A) of the Act and the Rules made thereunder. Form No.13 (B) was also issued on 08.02.1997 in favour of the said late Uma Maheshwar Rao. Sometime later, respondent Nos.3 and 4 filed appeal before the Revenue Divisional Officer, Khammam – respondent No.2 herein, purportedly under Section 5(B) of the Act with a prayer to cancel the passbooks issued in favour of the appellants and direct the Mandal Revenue Officer to issue fresh passbooks in their favour. The said appeal was allowed by the Revenue Divisional Officer by order dated 15.04.2003. One of the main grounds on which the said appeal was allowed was that no notices were given to respondent Nos.3 and 4 before the order was passed by the Mandal Revenue Officer. Another reason for setting aside the said order was that a civil dispute was pending in the Court of the Junior Civil Judge, Sathupally, which was filed by the predecessor-in-title of the appellants and that therefore after disposal of the said suit, the parties can approach the Mandal Revenue Officer and that in such an event the judgment and decree will be binding on him for its implementation. The said order was questioned in revision before the Joint Collector, Khammam by the appellants. The said revision was dismissed. Therefore, the appellants filed WP.No.13285 of 2009. The learned Single Judge by the order under appeal dismissed the writ petition. Hence, the present writ appeal is filed assailing the said order. The learned counsel for the appellants submitted that both the hierarchical authorities and the learned Single Judge have not considered the fact that the mutation of the appellants’ names in the pattadar passbooks was made as a consequence of the validation order passed by the Mandal Revenue Officer under Section 5(A) of the Act and that therefore no notice was required to be issued to respondent Nos.3 and 4. The learned counsel further submitted that both the appellate and the revisional authorities have committed serious error in observing that in view of the pendency of the civil suit, the mutation in favour of the appellants was not warranted and that the result of the civil suit would bind the parties. According to the learned counsel, the civil suit, namely, O.S.No.152 of 2001 was filed in the Court of the Junior Civil Judge, Sathupally by the predecessor- in-title of the appellants only for injunction and not for declaration of title. He also contended that respondent Nos.3 and 4 failed to file the appeal under Section 5(B) of the Act in time and that the appellate authority had no jurisdiction to extend limitation. While the learned Government Pleader sought to sustain the orders of the appellate and the revisional authorities and also the order of the learned Single Judge, the learned counsel representing respondent Nos.3 and 4 submitted that since the Tahsildar failed to issue notices to respondent Nos.3 and 4 and a civil suit filed by the appellants is pending, the appellate authority rightly set aside the orders of the Mandal Revenue Officer and that therefore the order of the learned Single Judge does not call for any interference by this Court. We have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. It is not in dispute that late Uma Maheshwar Rao, through whom the appellants have been making their claims to the property in question, obtained validation of a plain sale deed under Section 5(A) of the Act and also a certificate in Form 13(B) in respect thereof. A perusal of the record shows that though respondent Nos.3 and 4 purported to file appeal under Section 5(B), they have not prayed for setting aside the validation order passed under Section 5(A) of the Act. They have merely asked for setting aside the pattadar passbooks and to issue fresh pattadar passbooks in their name. Be that as it may, the main grievance of respondent Nos.3 and 4 and the ground on which the Revenue Divisional Officer has set aside the order of the Mandal Revenue Officer granting pattadar passbooks in favour of the appellants was that no notice was given to respondent Nos.3 and 4. But, the Revenue Divisional Officer failed to consider the fact that fresh pattadar passbooks were issued in favour of the appellants as a consequence of the validation order passed under Section 5(A) of the Act. Section 5(A)(5) of the Act does not specifically envisage issuance of notices to the aggrieved parties unlike Section 5(3) under which the Mandal Revenue Officer before amending entries in the revenue record should issue notice in writing to all the persons whose names are entered in the record of rights and who are interested in or affected by the amendment. Even assuming that respondent Nos.3 and 4 were entitled to notice, that by itself would not have been a ground to allow the appeal in toto without the Revenue Divisional Officer examining the right of the appellants for validation of the sale deed. As noted above, though proper prayer was not made in the appeal filed by respondent Nos.3 and 4, the fact remains that the appeal was filed under Section 5(B) of the Act, which would necessarily mean that they were aggrieved by the validation order passed by the Mandal Revenue Officer in favour of the appellants. The Revenue Divisional Officer ought to have examined the appeal from that perspective and decided the rights of the parties qua the order passed by the Mandal Revenue Officer under Section 5(A) and the certificate issued by him. The revisional authority also failed to examine this aspect from the said perspective and merely confirmed the order of the appellate authority. In our considered view, the learned Single Judge ought not to have dismissed the writ petition in limine by relegating the parties to the civil Court under Section 8(2) of the Act. For the abovementioned reasons, we allow the writ appeal by setting aside the orders of the appellate and the revisional authorities as well as the order of the learned Single Judge. The appellate authority, namely, the Revenue Divisional Officer, Khammam, respondent No.2, is directed to reconsider and dispose of the appeal afresh in the light of the observations contained in this order, after hearing all the parties interested. He shall also consider the contention raised by the appellants that the appeal filed by respondent Nos.3 and 4 is time barred apart from other contentions on merits. As a sequel to disposal of the writ appeal in the manner indicated above, WAMP.No.2014 of 2009 filed by the appellants for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. ANIL R. DAVE, CJ C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Date: 03.08.2009 ES