IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) THURSDAY, THE THIRTY FIRST DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 21925 of 2000 Between: 1 G.Shymala Raju, S/o. G.Ramakrishna Rao, R/o. Kotha Mupparru VIllage, Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. 2 G.Viswaraju S/o. G.Ramakrishna Rao R/o. Kotha Mupparru VIllage, Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. 3 G.Kanakaraju S/o. G.Ramakrishna Rao R/o. Kotha Mupparru VIllage, Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 The Commissioner, Appeals, Officer of the Chief Commissioner of Labour Administration, Hyderabad. 2 Jt.Collector Eluru West Godavari District. 3 Mandal Revenue Officer, Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. 4 Illaparthi Israel, ( Died) Leaving behind no legal heirs hwnce no notice need to be sent 5 illaparthi Veerraju, ( Died) Rep by its Wife, his Legal heir, Illaparthi Mariamma,age 45, R/o. Kotha Mupparru Village Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioners:MR.M.RAJAMALLA REDDY Counsel for the Respondents: AGP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following : ORDER: An interesting question which arises for consideration in this writ petition is whether the wife of an Attender, who at the relevant time was working in the Oﬃce of Chief Planning Oﬃcer, Eluru and drawing a salary of Rs.407/- per month, was a landless poor person or not. The undisputed facts are that by proceedings, dated 03.12.1985, the mother of the petitioners was assigned the land admeasuring Ac.1.24 cents in R.S.Nos.90 and 91 of Kotha Mupparru Village, Pedapadu Mandal, West Godavari District. It is admitted in the counter-aﬃdavit that even prior to the said assignment, she occupied the said land and developed the same. Eight years later, respondent Nos.4 and 5, who did not ﬁle any appeal against the said assignment, approached respondent No.2 by way of a revision petition against the said assignment. The accusation against the assignee was that by misrepresenting the facts, she obtained assignment, though her husband was working as Attender. The Board Standing Orders (BSO), which are more in the nature of executive instructions rather than having any statutory ﬂavour, govern the assignment of lands. BSO.15 Part II deals with disposal of land, through various methods. BSO.15(3) provides that only landless and poor persons, who directly engage themselves in cultivation, including Harijans, Ex-Toddy Tappers, backward communities etc., shall be eligible for assignment. It also provides that Ex-Service Men, Serving Soldiers, Political Suﬀerers and Co-operative Societies consisting of entirely landless poor persons shall also be eligible for assignment. BSO.15(2) deﬁnes “landless poor person” as one who owns not more than 2½ acres of wet or 5 acres of dry land and is also poor. Under Note 1, it is provided that when the question whether a person is poor or not arises, the same is left to the discretion of assigning authorities. Under BSO.15(10), order of preference among the landless poor applicants is prescribed. It provides that among the landless poor applicants, preference shall be given to the person, who owns no land at all and between Sivoijamadar and non-Sivoijamadar, Sivoijamadar, who was in continuous occupation of the land, will get preference. The word “Sivoijamadar” is deﬁned in BSO.15(2)(iii) as one who has been in occupation of the land at the time of consideration for its assignment, provided he had been in continuous occupation of the land from the fasli immediately preceding the one, in which, the assignment is considered. In order, dated 07.04.1993, respondent No.2 stated that as per the particulars furnished by the Chief Planning Oﬃcer, Eluru, the husband of the assignee (father of the petitioners) entered Government service on 03.09.1963, drawing a monthly salary of Rs.349.45 ps from January, 1979 to August, 1979 and Rs.407/- from August, 1979 to December, 1979, in which year, his wife applied for assignment. He also stated that a person is eligible for assignment, if he owns not more than 2½ acres of wet land or Acs.5.00 of dry land or if he is an agricultural labourer, whose annual income does not exceed Rs.1,800/- per annum. On this premise, he had come to the conclusion that the assignment was made due to mistake of fact or by concealment of information to the authorities, who granted patta. During the hearing, the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue (Assignments) was asked to explain the basis for the ﬁnding of respondent No.2 that in the case of agricultural labourers, they are eligible if their annual income does not exceed Rs.1,800/- per annum. Though he stated that there are certain Government Orders, he has not placed any such order before the Court. Neither respondent No.2 in his order referred to any such Government Orders nor in the counter-aﬃdavit ﬁled by respondent No.3, the basis for respondent No.2 arriving at such a conclusion is revealed. While the term “landless person” is deﬁned as the one who does not own more than 2½ acres of wet land or Acs.5.00 of dry land, the word “poor” is not deﬁned and as noted above, Note 1 of BSO.15(2) left the discretion to the assigning authorities to decide the question whether a person is poor or not. In the absence of deﬁnition of the word “poor”, the assigning authority or the higher authorities are bound to take into consideration the circumstances, such as, social and economic status and the size of the family. The husband of the petitioner was an Attender, who even according to respondent No.2 was drawing a meagre monthly salary of Rs.407/-, when the application for assignment was made. They had a family of ﬁve in all, with the three petitioners being their sons. By no stretch of imagination, can one conclude that a person with a family of ﬁve persons drawing a total salary of Rs.407/- per month was not poor. The word “poor” is a relative term. Unless it is precisely deﬁned, it is required to be understood by taking into consideration the above-mentioned factors relating to the status of the family. The mere fact that the husband of the assignee was in the Government employment, it would be a travesty of justice to treat every Government employee as rich or aﬄuent, irrespective of their status. An Attender, like the husband of the assignee, who was employed at the lowest rung of the public employment, cannot be equated with an employee of a rank of an Officer. It is, therefore, very much necessary for the assigning authority or his superiors to exercise sound discretion in considering whether a particular person is poor or not for the purpose of deciding his eligibility for assignment. Let me examine this issue from another perspective. If a person owns wet land up to 2.50 acres and does not have the income from other sources, he is eligible for assignment. But, if a person, who owns no land at all and one of his family members is employed as a last grade employee as in this case, it would be a travesty of justice to render him ineligible for grant of assignment by branding him as a person who is not poor, because in the case of a person, who owns up to 2.50 acres of wet land, his income would ordinarily be not less than the annual income of a lowly paid last grade employee and at any rate, in the year 1979, when the application for assignment was made in the instant case, a person, who was owning wet land of 2.50 acres would not have been earning less than Rs.5,000/- to Rs.6,000/- per annum even on a conservative estimate. Therefore, it would be wholly unreasonable to treat the family of the petitioners as ineligible for grant of assignment either in the year 1979, when the application was made, or in the year 1985, when the assignment was granted, merely on the ground that the husband of the assignee was working as an attender. In this case, it is not in dispute that the mother of the petitioners was in possession of the property prior to her applying for assignment and, therefore, she can be rightfully considered as Sivoijamadar within the deﬁnition of BSO.15(2) (iii). It is not the case of respondent Nos.1 and 2 that respondent Nos.4 and 5 are poorer than the assignee or that their applications were pending, when the mother of the petitioners applied and that excluding their claims, the petitioners’ mother was granted assignment. As a fact, they never questioned the grant of assignment in favour of the petitioners’ mother, though they had a right of ﬁling appeal under BSO.15(15). Having slept over the matter for more than eight (8) years, they leisurely approached respondent No.2 with a revision petition, which was entertained and allowed by him. In entertaining the revision, respondent No.2 ought to have considered the fact that respondent Nos.4 and 5 approached him without availing the remedy of appeal for eight (8) years. Though the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Assignments strenuously contended that under BSO.15(18), respondent No.2 has power to exercise suo motu revision without any limit of time, where it is found that the assignment was obtained by a person by misrepresentation or by playing fraud, I have not felt impressed by this contention on the facts of this case, because respondent No.2 has not exercised suo motu revisional powers in cancelling the assignment granted in favour of the mother of the petitioners. As speciﬁcally stated by him in his order, he entertained the revision petition ﬁled by respondent Nos.4 and 5. BSO.15(18) reads as under: “(1) The order of the authority making the assignment, if no appeal is presented, or of the appellate authority, if an appeal is presented is ﬁnal and no second appeal shall be admitted. But if at any time within three years of the original or appellate decision, the Collector is satisﬁed that there has been a material irregularity in the procedure or that the decision was grossly inequitable or that it exceeded the powers of the oﬃcer who passed it or that it was passed under a mistake of fact or owing to fraud or misrepresentation, he may in the case of an order passed by an oﬃcer subordinate to him, set aside, cancel or in any way modify the decision. The Board of Revenue may set aside, cancel or in any way modify the decision of an oﬃcer subordinate to it within three years if it is satisﬁed that the decision was grossly inequitable; it may also exercise similar powers without any limit of time where there has been a material irregularity in the procedure or where the decision exceeded the powers of the oﬃcer who passed it or where it was passed under a mistake of fact or owing to fraud or misrepresentation. All revision petitions in darkhast cases should be stamped with a court fee label to the value of two rupees. The power of the Board of Revenue (presently, the Commissioner of Land Revenue) to exercise suo motu revision without any limit of time is conferred on the District Collector also by a subsequent amendment. From the above-reproduced provision, it is evident that the order of the authority making the assignment, if no appeal is presented or of the appellate authority if an appeal is presented is ﬁnal and no second appeal shall be admitted. But if at any time, the Collector or the Board of Revenue is satisﬁed that there has been a material irregularity in the procedure or that the decision was grossly inequitable or that it exceeded the powers of the Oﬃcer, who passed it or that it was passed under a mistake of fact or owing to fraud or misrepresentation, he may in the case of an order passed by an Oﬃcer subordinate to him, set aside, cancel or in any way modify the decision. As noted above, respondent No.2 has not exercised his suo motu powers contained in the above-mentioned provision. Therefore, he ought not to have entertained the revision ﬁled by respondent Nos.4 and 5 after a period of eight (8) years. If such revision petitions are allowed to be ﬁled after an unduly long time, even without the revision petitioners availing the remedy of appeal, the whole scheme providing for hierarchical remedies to the aggrieved parties, gets frustrated and it will place premium on those who for their own reasons were lethargic and have slept over without availing their remedy of appeal for unduly long periods. There is another angle to this case. Before making the serious accusation of suppression and a ﬁnding thereon, it is incumbent upon respondent No.2 to examine the record including her application and render a speciﬁc ﬁnding that she did not mention the fact that her husband was an Attender in her application. Therefore, assuming that exercise of power by respondent No.2 could be traced to his suo motu jurisdiction under BSO.15(18), no foundation is laid for the ﬁnding that the assignment made in favour of the mother of the petitioners was either due to mistake of fact or by concealment of information. It could quite well be that the assigning authority would have been aware of the fact that the husband of the assignee was an Attender, but considering that he was a last grade employee and the meagre salary he gets may not be suﬃcient to maintain ﬁve members of his family and the further fact that the assignee was a Sivoijamadar, the assignment could have been made. Unless respondent No.2 had on the basis of the material available on record come to the deﬁnite conclusion that the mother of the petitioners suppressed the material facts, there is no justiﬁcation for him to conclude that the assignment made in her favour was either on account of mistake of fact or concealment of information. Respondent No.1 had merely reiterated, what respondent No.2 had held in his order. For the above-mentioned reasons, the writ petition is allowed and both the impugned orders of respondent Nos.1 and 2 are quashed. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 31st JULY, 2008. Note: L.R.copies be marked. kvni