IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) FRIDAY, THE EIGHTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO.12078 of 1999 Between: 1 Ravula Anantha Ram Reddy S/o. Narasimha Reddy R/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 2 Ravula Ranga Reddy S/o.Anantha RamReddy R/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 3 Dasari Mallaiah S/o. Rajaiah r/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 4 Ravula Hanumandlu S/o. Kondaiah R/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 5 Peessara Rama Rao S/o. Hanumanthu r/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 6 Boyinapalli Prabhakar Rao S/o. Kondal Rao R/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. 7 Kondam Rajaiah S/o. Narasimha r/o. Thotapalli & Devakipalli Villages, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar Dist. ...PETITIONERS AND 1 The Commissioner of Land Revenue, Govternment of A.P., Hyderabad. 2 The Joint Collector, Karimnagar, Karimnagar District. 3 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 4 The Revenue Divisional Officer, Karimnagar, Karimnagar District. 5 Ravula Raghava Reddy, S/O. Kista Reddy R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 6 Ravula Kista Reddy S/o. Ramachandra Reddy R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 7 Sorupaka Janaiah S/o. Narsaiah R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 8 Ravula Ranga Reddy S/o. Ramachandra Reddy R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 9 Ravula Laxmi W/o. Venkat Reddy Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. 10 Karveda Linga Reddy S/o. Venkat Reddy R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal Karimnagar Dirstric. 11 Jangidi Malla Reddy S/o. Latchaiah R/o. Devakkapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District. ...RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioners: MR.A.PRABHAKAR RAO Counsel for the Respondents 1 to 4: GP FOR REVENUE Counsel for the Respondents 6 to 14: M.A.BARI The Court made the following: THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO.12078 of 1999 ORDER: This Writ Petition is ﬁled for a Writ of Certiorari to quash orders dated 19.04.1995 and 17.03.1999 of respondent Nos.2 and 1 respectively. Petitioner Nos.2 and 6 were ex-army personnel. Petitioner No.1 was the father of a deceased army personnel. Petitioner Nos.1, 2 and 6 were assigned lands admeasuring Acs.3.20 gts each and petitioner Nos.3, 4 and 7 were assigned lands admeasuring Ac.1.00 each in Survey No.164 of Thotapalli Village, Bejjanki Mandal, Karimnagar District respectively. When respondent Nos.5 to 11 approached respondent No.4 for cancellation of the above mentioned assignments, by his order dated 05.11.1993, respondent No.3 rejected the said request. They have thereafter approached respondent No.2 by way of a revision under Section 166-B of the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317 Fasli (“1317 Fasli” for short). By order dated 19.04.1995, respondent No.2 allowed the said revision and set aside the assignments granted in favour of the above mentioned petitioners. The petitioners ﬁled a purported appeal before respondent No.1, who, by his order dated 17.03.1999, confirmed the order of respondent No.2. Heard Sri A.Prabhakara Rao, learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue (Assignments) for respondents 1 to 4 and Sri M.A.Bari, learned counsel for respondents 5 to 11. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the order passed by respondent No.2 is in grave violation of principles of natural justice because, before passing his order cancelling the assignments, the petitioners were not put to notice and given an opportunity of hearing. He further submitted that the petitioners ﬁled their objections to the report submitted by the Technical Committee constituted by respondent No.1 and respondent No.1 has not considered the said objections. While learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue (Assignments) sought to sustain the validity of the orders passed by respondents 2 and 1, Sri M.A.Bari, learned counsel representing respondents 5 to 11, submitted that as both the respondents concurrently found, on the basis of the revenue record, that the lands which were assigned to some of the petitioners are ‘sikham poramboke’, the assignment of which is admittedly prohibited, the petitioners do not deserve any relief in this Writ Petition. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel and perused the record. Before dealing with the contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners on merits, it is necessary to notice that against an order passed in revision by the Collector (which expression includes Joint Collector) under Section 166- B of 1317 Fasli, no further appeal is provided and under Section 166-C of 1317 Fasli, the power of review is conferred on the Government. In the instant case, the petitioners ﬁled an appeal before respondent No.1, who had no jurisdiction to entertain such an appeal and pass an order. The Writ Petition is required to be disposed of keeping this fact in view. The petitioners speciﬁcally pleaded both before respondent No.1 and in this Writ Petition that before passing order by respondent No.2, he has not given any notice to the petitioners and opportunity of hearing. From a perusal of the order passed by respondent No.1, it is seen that he has not considered this aspect. He, however, appointed a committee consisting of three oﬃcials from Revenue, Survey and Land Records and Irrigation Department and based his ﬁndings on the report of the said committee. Having regard to the fact that respondent No.1 had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, the report of the said committee, in my view, has no legal validity. The only issue that remains to be considered is whether the order passed by respondent No.2 invalidating the assignments can be sustained or not. As held by catena of judgments reported in State of Orissa v. Dr. (Miss) Binapani Devi & Others[1], Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India[2] and Swadeshi Cotton Mills v. Union of India[3], that before passing of any order, by an administrative or quasi judicial authority, a person likely to be aﬀected by such order is entitled to be given a notice and opportunity of hearing. This principle is unexceptionable unless the statute under which the authority passed the order speciﬁcally dispenses with such a requirement. In fact, far from doing so, the proviso to Section 166-B of 1317 Fasli mandates that no order or decision aﬀecting the rights of the ryots shall be modiﬁed or annulled unless the concerned parties are summoned and heard. In the absence of the denial that the petitioners were not given any notice by respondent No.2 before passing the impugned order, the said order is in the teeth of the above mentioned statutory provision apart from being contrary to the established doctrine of principles of natural justice. For the above mentioned reasons, the Writ Petition is allowed and impugned orders passed by respondents 1 and 2 are set aside, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case. The case is remanded to respondent No.2 to decide the same afresh after giving the petitioners and the contesting respondents a reasonable opportunity of being heard. Respondent No.2 shall receive the material, if any, to be submitted by the petitioners, consider the same and pass a reasoned order. _______________________ (C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J) 8th August 2008 RRB [1] AIR 1967 SC 1269 [2] AIR 1978 SC 597 [3] AIR 1981 SC 818