IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) THURSDAY, THE TWENTY EIGHTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 18896 of 2004 Between: 1 Gumudavelli Vasantha W/o. G. Prakash, R/o. H.No. 20-39, Badepalli Village, Jadcherla Mandal, Mahabubnagar District. 2 G. Uma Rani, W/o. G. Srinivas, R/o. H.No. 20-39, Badepalli Village, Jadcherla Mandal, Mahabubnagar District. ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 The District Collector, Mahabubnagar District. 2 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Jedcherla Mandal, Mahabubnagar District. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioners:SMT.G.JYOTHI KIRAN Counsel for the Respondents: AGP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of mandamus to set aside proceedings in File No.C/5636/98, dated 08.03.1999 issued by respondent No.2 as illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional. In their aﬃdavit, the petitioners claimed that they purchased the land admeasuring Ac.1.02 guntas and Ac.0-13 guntas respectively in Survey No.161/11/AA of Badepalli Village, Jadcherla Mandal, Mahabubnagar District under sale deed Nos.1718/97 and 1717/97, dated 06.11.1997 from Ediga Krishnaiah and B.Hari Rao for a valuable sale consideration. They averred that when the respondents started interfering with the possession of the said land, they ﬁled O.S.No.38 of 1999, wherein they have pleaded that the land is a private patta land, and that on their applications, respondent No.2 issued pattadar passbooks and title deeds under the Andhra Pradesh Record of Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. They further averred that in the written statement ﬁled by the respondents in the said suit, they have taken the stand that the land in question was assigned to U.Kistaiah, Son of Balaiah and that as he sold the property in violation of the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Land (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 (for short ‘the Act’), notices in Form-I were issued to the petitioners and their predecessors in title and the original assignee alone attended the enquiry and that after enquiry, order, dated 08.03.1999 was passed cancelling the assignment and resuming the land. As the petitioners came to know about passing of the said order through the written statement ﬁled by the respondents in the said suit, they ﬁled this writ petition questioning the said order. The main plank on which the petitioners’ case is based is that respondent No.2 deposed in the suit ﬁled by the petitioners that the land was assigned under the Laoni Rules, 1950. From this fact, they pleaded that as the said Rules did not contain the condition of prohibition of transfer, initiation of proceedings under the Act is wholly without jurisdiction. In the counter-affidavit filed by respondent No.2, it is inter alia averred that the land in question was assigned to the original assignee in the year 1960-61 under the Laoni Patta Rules; that the patta is covered by G.O.Ms.No.1406, dated 25.07.1958 and that as per Clause (ii) of the said G.O., the assigned land is not alienable but only heritable and, therefore, the assignment was conditional and consequently, the provisions of the Act are attracted to the transaction entered into by the original assignee with the petitioners. The crucial question for consideration is whether the assignment made in favour of the original assignee contained the condition of non-alienation. Neither of the parties ﬁled a copy of patta in order to enable this Court to render a ﬁnding on this aspect. Though the case was adjourned on more than one occasion, the respondents have not produced a copy of the patta, though some of the records were produced by them, which only show that the land originally belonged to the Government. In this writ petition, the petitioners have not disputed the fact that the land in dispute belonged to the Government. But, as noted above, they relied upon the deposition of respondent No.2 in the civil suit ﬁled by them wherein he stated that the patta was granted under Laoni Rules, 1950 and thereby, they presume that the patta may not be containing the condition of non-alienation. But the respondents speciﬁcally pleaded that though the assignment was granted under the Laoni Rules, the patta contained the conditions stipulated in G.O.Ms.No.1406, dated 25.07.1958. The record produced by the learned Assistant Government Pleader contains proceedings, dated 01.05.1961 issued by the Tahsildar, Mahabubnagar, wherein it is noted that the assignments were made in favour of the petitioners and various others mentioned therein in accordance with G.O.Ms.No.1406, dated 25.07.1958 free of cost with the terms and conditions, which include the condition that the land assigned shall be heritable, but not alienable. The question whether patta contains such a condition or not falls in the realm of the disputed question of fact, which this Court cannot decide in the absence of relevant material placed before it. Only in the event that a ﬁnding is rendered in favour of the petitioners that the patta granted to the original assignee did not contain the condition against alienation, the respondents will be denuded of the jurisdiction to initiate proceedings under the Act. Therefore, the premise, on which the writ petition is ﬁled, namely, the jurisdictional question, is not available to the petitioners, as, at the moment, to entertain the writ petition ﬁled bypassing the eﬀective alternative remedy of appeal under Section 4A of the Act. Therefore, the petitioners are relegated to the statutory appeal to be ﬁled before the appropriate authority to question the impugned order of resumption. The Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer concerned, who is the appellate authority, shall entertain the appeal, if the same is ﬁled within a period of four (4) weeks from today and decide the same on merits. The petitioners are entitled to raise all legally permissible grounds including the ground that the patta granted in favour of the original assignee does not contain any condition against non-alienation and, therefore, the provisions of the Act are not attracted. If such an appeal is ﬁled within the time mentioned above, the petitioners shall not be dispossessed from the land in question, if they are in possession, till the disposal of the appeal by the appellate authority. Subject to the above observations, the writ petition is disposed of. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 28th AUGUST, 2008. kvni