IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION NO : 30704 of 1998 Between: Sri Gadde Babu Rao, S/o. Veera Raghava Rao, R/o. Kothapalli Village, Bapulapadu Mandal, Krishna District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Commissioner, Survey Settlements and Land Records, A.P., Hyderabad. 2 The Director of Settlements, A.P., Hyderabad. 3 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Bapulapadu Mandal, Bapulapadu, Krishna District. 4 Koram Papa Rao, S/o. Sobhanadri, R/o. Kothapalli, Bapulapadu Mandal, Krishna District. ..RESPONDENT(S) Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other appropriate Writ, Order or Direction, calling for the records relating to the order of the Commissioner of Survey, Settlements and Land Records in C.SSLR's Ref.No. P2/57/96, dated 06/01/1998 and declare the same as illegal arbitrary and unjust and pass. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.B.KRISHNA KUMAR Counsel for the Respondent No.: GP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following : THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION NO : 30704 of 1998 ORDER: The order under challenge in this Writ Petition is that of the 1st respondent dated 06.01.1998 whereby the revision ﬁled by the 4th respondent herein was allowed and the order granting patta in favour of the petitioners herein was set aside. Facts, in brief, are that the petitioner’s father ﬁled an application before the Settlement Oﬃcer, Eluru for grant of a Ryotwari patta for an extent of Acs.16.50 cents in Kothapally village of Nuzvid Taluq, Krishna District. The claim petition was rejected by order dated 31.05.1977. Aggrieved thereby, a revision was ﬁled before the Director of Settlements in R.P.No.83 of 1977. The Director of Settlements conducted spot inspection in the presence of parties and the Deputy Tehasildar and, after enquiry, held in his order dated 05.05.1979 that the lands claimed had not been developed as a tank even during the period from 10.04.1925 to 10.09.1932 and that, from the true extracts of the Adangal, the schedule land was not a tank but was a submersible land under Potlakaya Tank, that the land was a patta land which was being cultivated by the petitioner’s predecessors in title. One Sri S.Devadanam, who had objected to the grant of patta before the Director of Settlements, ﬁled a revision before the Commissioner of Survey and Settlement which was dismissed holding that Sri Devadanam had no locus standi. Thereafter, he ﬁled W.P.No.7309 of 1981. This Court, by its order dated 09.03.1987, held that Sri Devadanam did not claim any personal interest in the matter and had objected to the grant of ryotwari patta in favour of the petitioner’s father as a representative of the village. This Court remanded the matter to the 1st respondent herein to decide the matter on merits. On the matter being remanded, since Sri S.Devadanam had died in the interregnum, the 1 st respondent dismissed the matter as abated vide proceedings dated 05.12.1994. Thereafter, the 4 th respondent ﬁled W.P.No.27098 of 1995 contending that he had sent a petition by registered post to the 1st respondent praying that he be permitted to come on record in a representative capacity and that the Commissioner had failed to consider the same. This Court, by order dated 29.11.1996, remanded the matter to the 1st respondent to issue notice to the petitioner and the 4th respondent and dispose of the revision petition on merits. Thereafter, the impugned order came to be passed. The 1st respondent, in the said order dated 06.01.1998 observed as under: “The connected records have been perused. No additional material was produced before the Commissioner, S.S. & L.R., in the earlier two vocands of litigation. The documents produced by either side before the Settlement Oﬃcer were duly considered in his Order, of the four documents ﬁled for R1 before this Court, one is the photo copy of a certiﬁcate issued by the V.A.O., regarding enjoyment of certain land assigned to the petitioner. This bears no relevance to the matter on hand. Another is the photocopy of ALD 1997 (2). As rightly argued by Learned Counsel for the petitioner, this relates to a suo motu revision and does not apply to the facts of the present case. Yet another is a photocopy of the village map. It is not explained how this advances his cause. The last is the purported photocopy of a memorandum said to have been issued by the Zamindar on 10.9.93. Its original was not produced before any authority in the Settlement Proceedings despite ample opportunity nor marked as Exhibit and hence is disregarded. The document said to have been ﬁled before the Director of Settlements on 7.4.79 after arguments on 2.4.79 were not marked and are not found in his ﬁle nor were produced in this Court. If the matter was reopened, with reference to the petition under which they were ﬁled, notices should have been given to the Tahsildar and the other Respondents before the Director of Settlements. In the circumstances, the orders of the Director of Settlements heavily relying on them are in violation of the principles of natural justice. A perusal of Ex.P2 shows clearly to the naked eye that the patta No., therein was written in a diﬀerent ink at a diﬀerent time as compared to the other entries. Thus, their credibility is liable for serious doubt. Ex.P1 is only for one year. Ex.P9 dt.13.11.68 clearly indicates that Sri Gadde Ramaswamy, the VillageMunsiﬀ, the grandfather of R1 deposed in the said Encroachment appeal before the R.D.O., but did not stake or mention any claim for the suit land. Ex.R1 makes it amply clear that the land was classiﬁed in 1363 F 10 (1) as ‘Poramboke’ being ‘Neeti Manaka’ and ‘Cheruvu’ per R.S.R. Ex.R5 relating to F.1357 also supports this with no entry regarding the pattadar. A claimant for patta has to prove the ryoti nature of the land, proper induction and continuous possession. On all these counts, the claimant failed to establish his entitlement. In the circumstances, the impugned orders are set aside and the Revision allowed”. The 1st respondent analysed the documents in detail and observed that, if the matter was reopened with reference to the petition, notice should have been given to the Tehasildar and other respondents when the matter was heard by the Director of Settlements and that the order of the Director of Settlement was in violation of principles of natural justice. The 1st respondent further observed that a perusal of Ex.A.2 showed that patta number therein was written in a diﬀerent ink, at a diﬀerent time, as compared to the other entries and that their credibility was liable to serious doubt. He also observed that Ex.P.1 was only for one year and that Ex.P.9 dated 13.11.2008 showed that the village Munsiﬀ, who was the grandfather of the deceased writ petitioner herein, had deposed in the encroachment appeal before the R.D.O. but did not stake any claim for the suit land and that it was evident that the land was classified as ‘Poramboke’ being ‘Neeti Manaka’ and ‘Cheruru’. The 1st respondent held that a claimant for patta had to prove the ryoti nature of the land, his proper induction and continuous possession and that, on all these counts, the claimant had failed to establish his entitlement. Before this Court Sri Y.Rama Rao, learned Counsel for the petitioner, would vehemently contend that the order of the Director of Settlement dated 05.05.1979 was an elaborate order and that no interference was called for in revision by the 1st respondent. Learned Counsel would further submit that, while the 1st respondent had referred to certain records, he had failed to give the petitioner an opportunity to produce several other records which would establish his entitlement for grant of patta. I see no reason to accept either of these grounds urged by the Learned Counsel to have the order of the 1st respondent set aside. The 1st respondent, in the order impugned in the writ petition, has referred to the earlier order of the Director of Settlement and has categorically observed that the said order was passed without giving the Tehasildar and the other respondents before him an opportunity of being heard and without putting them on notice and that the said order was in violation of principles of natural justice. With regards failure on the part of the 1st respondent to produce the records, the 1st respondent considered the records before him and has also noted this fact in his order. It is contended by Sri Y.Rama Rao, learned Counsel for the petitioner before this Court that there were several other documents which were in the petitioner’s possession and which he should have been oﬀered an opportunity to place before the 1st respondent. Since the Learned Counsel contended that the petitioner was in possession of such pre- abolition records, though the aﬃdavit ﬁled in support of the writ petition did not refer as to what were the pre-abolition records which the petitioner claimed to be in his possession, this Court, by order dated 25.08.2008, granted time to enable the petitioner to produce the records. Thereafter, the matter underwent three further adjournments and was taken up for hearing today. Today Sri Y.Rama Rao learned Counsel for the petitioners expresses his inability to place these records for perusal of this Court. Since, despite being given an opportunity, the petitioner has failed to produce the pre-abolition records which he claims to be in his possession, I see no reason to accept his request that the matter be remanded back to the 1st respondent to enable the petitioner to place these pre-abolition records before the 1st respondent. Viewed from any angle, the order of the 1st respondent does not necessitate interference in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The Writ Petition fails and is, accordingly, dismissed. However, in the circumstances, without costs. ___________ 15.09.2008 GS