THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN Writ Petition No. 6758 of 1999 Order: Seeking a direction to the respondents not to interfere with the petitioner’s possession and enjoyment of an extent of Ac.5-00 of land situated in Survey No.62 of Gudilova village, Anandapuram Mandal, Visakhapatnam District, the present writ petition is filed. The notice issued by the 2nd respondent in proceedings dated 19.03.1999 is assailed in this writ petition as arbitrary and illegal. The facts, as stated in the aﬃdavit ﬁled in support of the writ petition, are that the petitioner was assigned an extent of Ac.5-00 of land in Survey No. 62 of Gudilova village, Anandapuram Mandal, Visakhapatnam District, and was granted a patta on 02.12.1980. The xerox copy of the said proceedings is ﬁled along with the writ petition. While so, the 2nd respondent issued notice dated 19.03.1999 under Section 7 of the A.P. Land Encroachment Act, 1905, contending that the land in question belonged to the Government, and calling upon the petitioner to show cause as to why he should not be evicted from the said land. Sri T. Niranjan Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioner, would contend that since the petitioner has been given valid D-Form Patta, vide proceedings of the then Tahsildar dated 02.12.1980, and as he was in possession of the said land pursuant to the valid patta granted in his favour by the Government, he cannot be said to be an encroacher. Therefore, the notice issued under Section 7 of the A.P. Land Encroachment Act, 1905, presuming him to be an encroacher of the Government land, is clearly an order without jurisdiction and is required to be quashed. He would point out that this Court, in W.P.M.P. No. 8434 of 1999 in W.P. No. 6758 of 1999 dated 01.04.1999, had passed an interim order directing the respondents not to interfere with the possession and enjoyment of the petitioner over the land provided that he had a valid patta as on date. The petitioner was also directed to ﬁle an appropriate application before the authority who was directed to consider the same and pass appropriate orders. No counter aﬃdavit has been ﬁled on behalf of the respondents. The learned Government Pleader for Revenue would submit that she has no instructions in the matter. From the averments in the aﬃdavit, and the documents ﬁled along with the writ petition, it is evident that D-form patta was granted in favour of the petitioner in December, 1980. It is not known whether the said D-Form patta has or has not been cancelled thereafter. As long as the D-Form patta continues to subsist, the petitioner cannot be held to be an encroacher, and as such, any consequential proceedings instituted under the Land Encroachment Act would be without jurisdiction. Since there is no material on record to show that the said D-Form patta has been cancelled, albeit consequently, it must be presumed that the said patta continues to remain in force. It must, consequently, be held that the proceedings, dated 19.03.1999 issued by the 2nd respondent-Tahsildar in terms of the provisions of the A.P. Land Encroachment Act, 1905, calling upon the petitioner to show cause why he should not be evicted from the land in question, is an order without jurisdiction and must, accordingly, be quashed. The writ petition is allowed, and the impugned notice 19.03.1999, issued by the 2nd respondent, is quashed. However, in the circumstances, without costs. __________________________ RAMESH RANGANATHAN, J. Date: 26.08.2008 Nsr