IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY FIFTH DAY OF MARCH TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MRS JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE S. ASHOK KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO : 19942 of 2007 Between: A.Shashidhar Reddy s/o.Anand Reddy R/o.564/A/16, Road No.92, JUbilee Hills, Hyderabad. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Special Court under AP Land Grabbing (Prohibition ) Second Bench, 2nd floor, BRKR Govt offices complex Tank bund Road, Hyderabad 2 Janga Venkaiah s/o.Late Mallaiah R/o.2-34/1, Serilingampally village & Mandal Ranga Reddy District 3 Krishna S/o.Venkaiah R/o.2-34/1, Serilingampally village & Mandal Ranga Reddy District 4 Ramulu S/o.Janga Venkaiah R/o.2-34/1, Serilingampally village & Mandal Ranga Reddy District 5 Ashok S/o.Janga Venkaiah R/o.2-34/1, Serilingampally village & Mandal Ranga Reddy District 6 Srinivas S/o.Janga Venkaiah R/o.2-34/1, Serilingampally village & Mandal Ranga Reddy District 7 The Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy District, collectorate office Ranga Reddy District , Lakdikapool, Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENTS 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 to issue an appropriate writ or order or directionmore particularly one in the nature of writ of Certiorari calling for the records of the 1st respondent in LGC.2/2003 and quash the proceedings dated 7.9.2003 and consequently transfer the case LGC.No.2/2003 to the 1st Bench presided over by the Chairman Special court Land Grabbing (Prohibition) ,Hyderabad and pass Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.T.RAMULU Counsel for the Respondent No.: GP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following : THE HON'BLE SMT.JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE S. ASHOK KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO : 19942 of 2007 ORAL ORDER : { Per the Hon’ble Smt. Justice T. MEENAKUMARI } The present writ petition has been filed seeking a writ of certiorari calling for the records of the first respondent in LGC.No.2 of 2003 and quash the proceedings dated 7-9-2007 and consequently transfer LGC.No.2 of 2003 to the first Bench presided over by the Chairman Special Court Land Grabbing (Prohibition) and to pass such other suitable orders as this Court may deems fit and proper in the circumstances of the case. 2. The case of the petitioner is that he is the owner of an extent of Acs:2-20 guntas of land in survey no.74 of Serilingampali Revenue Village and Mandal and the said land having been purchased under registered sale deed dated 04-4-1981, which was registered as Document No.1510/1981 in the office of the Joint Sub-Registrar-II, Ranga Reddy district from the erstwhile owners; namely, Legala Venkat Reddy, Legala Satyanarayana Reddy, Legala Venkatamma and Legala Sugunamma as described in the said sale deed. It is stated that the aforesaid owners and their predecessors-in-title were the true and absolute owners of an extent of Acs:12-35 guntas of land comprising of sy.no.74 of Serilingampali village and Mandal. Out of the said extent, the aforesaid persons sold an extent of Acs:2-20 guntas of land in survey no.74 in favour of the petitioner under a registered sale deed and while another extent of Acs:2-20 guntas of land in the said survey number, adjacent to the land to the petitioner were sold in favour of one Smt. A. Indira by another registered sale deed on the same date. After the purchase of the said land, an application having been filed before the revenue authorities for bifurcating and demarcating the said extent of Acs:2-20 guntas of land purchased by him in the said survey no.74, the revenue authorities had bifurcated and recorded the same in revenue records as survey no.74/Telugu E (74-E) vide copy of faisal patta of the year 1983-84. Thereafter, title, possession and enjoyment of the said land had been entered in all the revenue records continuously every year vide pahanies for the year 1983-84 and 2000-2001 and that the petitioner has been paying land revenue in respect of the said land continuously. 3. While things stood thus, the respondents 2 to 6 in the writ petition had forcibly grabbed the said land in June 2002, whereupon, the petitioner filed a petition under the provisions of AP Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 before the first respondent in December 2002, which has been registered as LGC.No.2 of 2003. It is stated that on summons being issued, the respondents 2 to 6 had filed a counter, wherein they have neither disputed the title of the vendors nor the title obtained by him, muchless had the said respondents 2 to 6 set up any rival title of theirs. The whole burden of defence as it emerges from the counter is that they have ben in possession of the said land for long time and that they have raised the plants and trees therein, which are aged more than the statutory period of 12 years. 4. Further it is stated that while the petitioner filed certified copies of village records showing his title and possession right from the year 1982 to the date of filing of LGC i.e., upto the year 2002, the respondents 2 to 6 have not filed a single document evidencing either their title or possession. To be more elaborate they have not filed a copy of pahani for any single year for any of the 40 years of their claim of possession and muchless of 12 years claimed them; nor have they filed any land revenue receipts showing the payment of land revenue. The only assertion of their claim of possession is that they have applied for and obtained an electrical connection on the said land in respect of a consumer number, which is admittedly installed in survey no.76/1 of Serilingampalli village. 5. It is also stated that survey no.76/1 of Serilingampali village and the electricity connection existing on the said land and the electricity bills claimed to have been paid by respondents 2 to 6 have no connection muchless any bearing on the said land. While the first document Ex.B1 marked in LGC in respect of such consumption is of the year 2000 and the last document chronologically in relation to the same is January 2002. The other document filed by respondents 2 to 6 for asserting their so-called possession on the said land are the municipal tax receipts in respect of a house bearing no.2-34 of Srilingampalli Municipality have no connection whatsoever to the land in question. Respondent No.4 (Respondent No.3 in LGC) figuring as RW.7 in the case had categorically admitted that the said document had no relevancy whatsoever to the application schedule property. Apart from the two sets of documents viz., Exs.B1 and B2 relating to electricity connection in survey nho.76/1 and Exs.B7 and B6 relating to H.No.2-34 in Serilingampalli Municipality. There are no other documents having been filed in support of their claim of being in possession of thee said land for a “long period” may not even for one year at any point of time. 6. It is stated that the LGC having been filed on 12-12-2002 and the counter thereto having been filed on 25-7-2003 the trial of the case was dragged for about five years on account of continuous adjournments sought for and obtained by respondents 2 to 6. In any case such prolong trial came to an end at last on 11-4-2007 when RW8 on behalf of respondents 2 to 6 was examined. The matter was posted for oral arguments on 26-4-2007 and which was again prolonged upto 8-8-2007 on which date both parties filed their written arguments apart from oral arguments as stated above. The matter was reserved for judgment on 8-8-2007. While the petitioner and his counsel was expecting delivery of judgment, the first respondent had put up a notice on 6-9-2007 on the notice board purporting to notify that the matter is re-opened and posted to 7-9-2007 on the said date his counsel presented himself before the first respondent and the court had passed the impugned order. 7. The court recorded in the impugned order, which reads as hereunder: “It is represented on behalf of both the counsels to adjourn for a further date and stated that they would furnish more documents” while recording the said observation putting the burden on counsels appearing for parties of their having representing for an adjournment for a further date for furnishing further documents, the first respondent court gave a suomoto direction to the registry of the court to obtain a status report from the Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy district in survey no.74 of Serilingampalli village of which the application schedule land is a part, as the existing evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at a just conclusion” 8. It is stated that while the petitioner had not instructed his counsel, Sri S.Prakash Reddy to make any representation on his behalf for obtaining any adjournment of the mater for any further date either for the purpose of filing any more documents or for any other purpose whatsoever, his advocate Sri S.Prakash Reddy informed him that he himself had not made any such representation before the court for an adjournment of the matter either for filing any more documents or for any other purpose. With great respect and also in all humility and with all responsibility, it is stated that the statement made in the impugned order of the first respondent is not at all true as a mater of fact and also the further statement in the impugned order that the evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at a just conclusion is also untrue and untenable. On behalf of the petitioner PWs.1 to 3 were examined and Exs.A1 to A22 were marked. Whereas the respondents examined RWs.1 to 8 and marked Exs.B1 to B6. In spite of so much evidence being brought on record by both the parties over a period of five long years, the statement purported to be made in the impugned order stating that “the existing evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at just conclusion” is absolutely untenable, unsustainable and unwarranted and not supported by any provision of law much less the provision of the AP Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act. Even before beginning of trial, the court had called for the report of Mandal Revenue Officer under Rule 6 of the Rules framed under the Act. 9. Further it is stated that sub-section 4 of Section 8 is applicable to Special Court mandates clearly that a case under sub-section 1 shall be disposed finally by the Court, as far as possible within a period of six months from the date of institution of the case before it. The case having been instituted in December 2002 had been dragged on for five long years and in spite of the voluminous evidence brought on record by both the parties, it is absolutely improper and beyond the jurisdiction of the court i.e., first respondent to say that “existing evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at a just conclusion”. While no party complained of any insufficiency of evidence, the impugned order inventing a non-existing ground of counsel for both parties making representation for filing documents, is baseless and uncalled for and prejudicial to the proceedings and likely to result in failure of justice. Section 10 of the Act also mandates that in proceedings under the Act, if there is a prima facie evidence of land being owned by the petitioner, the Special Court shall presume the person, who is alleged to have grabbed the land is a land grabber and the burden of proving that the land had not been grabbed shall be on such person. In spite of such statutory provision, the respondents 2 to 6 had not only been given sufficient opportunity to produce evidence but have also adduced their evidence though by a prolonged process of more than four years. It is not their complaint that they require any further time for producing evidence. In the circumstances, the special court appears to have developed a prejudice in respect of the subject-matter which is likely to result in failure of justice. At any rate, the impugned order is absolutely without jurisdiction and in contravention of the provisions of the Act and liable to be quashed. 10. Heard both sides and perused the record. 11. It is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the respondents 2 to 6 in the writ petition had forcibly grabbed the aforesaid land in June 2002 whereupon he filed a petition under the provisions of AP Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 before the first respondent in December 2002, which has been registered as LGC.No.2 of 2003. On summons being issued, respondents 2 to 6 filed their counter and in the counter the respondents 2 to 6 neither disputed the title of the vendors nor the title obtained by the petitioner, muchless had the respondents 2 to 6 set up any rival title of theirs. The petitioner examined inasmuch as PWs.1 to 3 and marked Exs.A1 to A22 and the respondents examined RWs.1 to 8 and marked Exs.B1 to B6. In spite of so much evidence being brought on record by both the parties over a period of five years, the statement purported to be made in the impugned order stating that “the existing evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at just conclusion” is absolutely unwarranted and not supported by any provision of law. On the verge of the trial coming to an end, a bench of the Tribunal in LGC.No.2 of 2003 passing the above order is unsustainable and also calling for the status report from the Mandal Revenue Officer is untenable. The learned counsel further argued that passing of the above order goes to show that the Bench is not satisfied with the existing evidence on record and wants to rely upon the status report. The learned counsel therefore prayed to transfer the LGC.No.2 of 2003 from the existing bench to any other bench. 12. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent has very much opposed the said contention. Even though the Bench of the Tribunal is not satisfied with the evidence on record, probably it might have called for the status report from the Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy district in respect of the schedule land in survey no.74 of Serilingampalli. The memorandum of grounds attached to the writ petition goes to show that the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition, having stated that the trial went on for five years and the evidence placed on record by both the parties and the observation of the bench that the existing evidence on record is not sufficient to arrive at a just conclusion is unwarranted observation by the bench dealing with a particular case. 13. We are of the opinion that the observation made in the impugned order by the existing bench on record is not sufficient is an “unwarranted observation” and the bench of the tribunal should have proceeded with the matter finally and even though the jurisdiction of the bench to call for the report of the Mandal Revenue Officer is not questionable but however the bench would have proceeded with the trial of the case basing on the evidence available on record while calling for the status report of the Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy district. 14. Under the circumstances, we are of the opinion that the matter may be transferred to any other bench and it is also directed that the said bench should proceed with the mater on the basis of the evidence available on record and if the said bench wants to call for the status report of the Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy district and if the said bench inclined to exercise its jurisdiction to call for the status report, it can do so in accordance with law. It is also further directed that LGC.No.2 of 2003 should be disposed of within a period of two months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. 15. With the above observation, the impugned order is set aside and the writ petition is allowed. No costs. _________________________ JUSTICE T. MEENA KUMARI ________________________ JUSTICE S. ASHOK KUMAR. 25-3-2008. I s L