IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE SECOND DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 24691 of 2004 Between: 1 Sri T.N.Naga Raja(died) S/o late Naganarasimhulu Nayunivaru rep.by his legal heirs. 2 Sri T.N.Prasanna Kumar S/o T.N.Nagaraja cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 3 Sri T.N.Vijayanad S/o T.N.Nagaraja cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 4 Sri T.N.Dinakar S/o T.N.Nagaraja cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 5 Sri T.N.Rama Mohan S/o T.N.Nagaraja. cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam Village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 6 Sri T.N.Naga Bramaiah S/o Late Naganarasimhulu cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 7 Sri R.Nagavarma s/o Late Naga Narasimhulu cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 8 Sri R.Naga Prasad S/o Late Naganarasimhulu cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 9 Smt.Krishnaveni D/o Late Naga Nirmala, W/o Vijayan, cultivation, residing at Thumbakuppam village and post, Bangarupalyam Mandal, Chittoor District AP., 10 Smt. Veera Nagamma W/o Kadiripathi, Chilakaneripalli, Muddimadugu Post, Srinivasapuram Talu, Kolar District Karnataka state 11 Smt. Naga Rohini W/o Sidda Mallappa R/o Chavadasamudram and Post , thambalapalli Mandal Chittoor District, AP. 12 Smt. Naga Sunanda (died) w/o Munirathnam Gangammagaripalle, Penumoor Mandal, Chittoor District. AP., ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 The District Judge cum Estate Abolition Tribunal, Chittoor, 2 The Joint Collector cum Settlement Officer Chittoor. 3 The Mandal Revenue Officer Bangarupalem, Chittoor. 4 Sri Chandra Mouli S/o Anjaneyulu 5 Sri C.Rama Chandra Reddy S/o Muni Reddy Bangarupalem Mandal, chittoor District AP., 6 Sri D.Mallikarjuna S/o Chengalrayappa 7 Sri A.Chandraiah S/o Chinnavya RR4 to 7 are Hindu, Occ: Cultivation R/o Thumbakuppma Village and Post, Bangarupalem Mandal, chittoor District AP., ...RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioners:MR.M.V.DURGA PRASAD Counsel for respondents 1 to 3: AGP FOR REVENUE Counsel for respondents 4 to 7: SRI A.RANGACHARYULU The Court made the following : O R D E R: This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of Certiorari to quash order dated 21-07-2004 passed by respondent No.1, whereby he conﬁrmed order dated 16-11-1998 passed by respondent No.2. This case has a long drawn litigation and a chequered history. The father of the petitioners, late R.Naga Narsimhulu Nayunivaru, adopted by one of the two widows of Thumbapalem Zamindar, ﬁled an application for grant of ryotwari patta under Section 11(a) of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (for short “the Act”) on 24-01-1957, following taking over of estate by the Government on 17-09- 1950. The said application was dismissed by the Assistant Settlement Oﬃcer, by his order dated 27-02-1965, by holding that the applicant who claimed to be the holder of the property was not entitled to ﬁle an application under Section 11(a) of the Act, but he was entitled to ﬁle such an application only under Section 15(1) of the Act. The appeal ﬁled by him was dismissed by the Settlement Oﬃcer on 28-12-1967. The revision ﬁled by him before the Board of Revenue, having met with the same fate with its dismissal on 29-06-1968, he unsuccessfully ﬁled W.P.No. 1392 of 1970 and W.A.No.663 of 1974, which were dismissed by this Court by orders dated 21-03-1974 and 17-09-1974 respectively. The petitioners, in their aﬃdavit, claimed that their father died on 21-07-1996. But, Sri A.Rangacharyulu, learned counsel for respondents 4 to 7, asserted that the petitioners’ father died on 21-07-1976. This aspect will be adverted to later on. On 08-01-1997, the petitioners ﬁled application under Section 15 of the Act before the Settlement Oﬃcer. The said application was dismissed on 16-11-1998 by respondent No.2 both on the ground that the application suﬀered from huge delay and also on the strength of certain ﬁndings on merits. Appeal ﬁled by the petitioners, before respondent No.1, was dismissed on 21-07-2004. Hence, the present writ petition is filed questioning the said two orders. At the hearing, Sri M.V.Durga Prasad, learned counsel for the petitioners, submitted that respondent No.2 was not justiﬁed in rejecting the application of the petitioners on the ground of delay. He urged that though superﬁcially it appears as if there was a delay of about 47 years in making the application under Section 15 of the Act, the facts that the petitioners’ father was involved in a long drawn litigation till 1974, as he was pursuing his remedy under Section 11(a) of the Act, and simultaneously, the parties were litigating under O.S.Nos.92 and 117 of 1965 and 20 and 21 of 1966, which were disposed of only on 27-04-1998, ought not to have been ignored by respondents 2 and 1. He has drawn my attention to Rule 12(2)(c)(1) of the Rules made under Section 67 read with Section 15 of the Act, under which if the landholder fails to apply under sub-rule (a) of the said Rules and Settlement Oﬃcer is satisﬁed that the landholder is prima facie entitled for patta in respect of any land, he is obligated to hold a suo motu enquiry after causing a notice published requiring the landholder to ﬁle an application. He, therefore, submitted that prescription of limitation under Rule 12(2)(a) of the said Rules cannot be equated with that of the limitation prescribed under the provisions of the Limitation Act, 1963. Sri A.Rangacharyulu, learned counsel for respondents 4 to 7, invited my attention to the judgment of the District Judge-respondent No.1, wherein the plea of the petitioners regarding the death of their father was referred to, and submitted that the petitioners’ father died in 1976 and no explanation was oﬀered by the petitioners for not ﬁling application for as long as 21 years. He, therefore, submitted that the application ﬁled by the petitioners with inordinate delay was rightly rejected by respondent No.2, which was conﬁrmed by respondent No.1, and that, therefore, the said orders are not liable to be interfered with. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. Though the petitioners claimed in the aﬃdavit that their father died on 21-07-1996, in paragraph 10 of the order passed by respondent No.1, it is stated that the petitioners pleaded that their father died in the year 1976. In the absence of any material to show that the father of the petitioners died in the year 1996, I have no reason to reject the ﬁnding of respondent No.1 contained in paragraph 10 of his order. Admittedly, the father of the petitioners had been litigating since the year 1957 by ﬁling an application under a wrong provision, namely; Section 11(a) of the Act, which has no application to the landholders. The said application having been dismissed in the year 1965, he continued with the litigation until writ appeal ﬁled by him was dismissed by this Court on 17-09-1974. There would have been some justiﬁcation for the petitioners if they had made an application within a reasonable time after the death of their father. The application ﬁled by the petitioners is not before this Court. At any rate, it is not the case of the petitioners that they were not aware of the litigation. On the petitioners’ own admission, a simultaneous litigation was pending all through in the above mentioned suits in which the father of the petitioners was a party till his death and later on the petitioners must have been impleaded as parties to the said suits. In this admitted factual background, the only issue that arises for consideration is whether respondent No.2 committed any error in rejecting the application of the petitioners for grant of a patta under Section 15(1) of the Act on the ground of inordinate delay. Though, as rightly pointed out by Sri M.V.Durga Prasad that having regard to the obligation cast on the Settlement Oﬃcer to issue a suo motu notice for holding an enquiry, if he is prima facie satisﬁed that the landholder is entitled for a patta, the nature of limitation prescribed under Rule 12 of the Rules made under Section 67 read with Section 15 of the Act, cannot be treated with the same rigor and standard as the provisions of Section 5 of the Limitation Act, but at the same time, it cannot be ignored that Rule 12 (2) (a) speciﬁcally provides that an application shall be made within 90 days from the notiﬁed date and in the case of estates already notiﬁed, within 90 days from the date of publication of the Rules. A discretion is, however, vested in the Settlement Oﬃcer to allow any further time within which such an application can be made. Since the purpose and object of prescribing limitation is to ensure that a person who ﬁghts for his rights shall always be diligent and stale claims cannot be entertained, entertainment of applications with inordinate and unexplained delay would render the very purpose for which limitation is prescribed nugatory. The absence of satisfactory explanation given by the petitioners for not approaching respondent No.2 at least from the time of the death of their father for a period of 21 years, certainly justiﬁes the view taken by respondent No.2 that such an application cannot be entertained. Therefore, I do not ﬁnd any error in the orders of respondents 2 and 1 warranting interference by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. For the above mentioned reasons, the writ petition is dismissed. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Dated 2nd September, 2008 vrn