Case: Madan Lal Vs. State Of U.P. And Others

Appellant Madan Lal had preferred a claim under sec. 6 of the Act in respect of certain plots of land in village Khamaria, Pargana Khairigarh, District Kheri which were included along with other land in a notification under sec. 4 of the Act issued on April 3, 1954 declaring that the State Government had decided to constitute the said land a reserved forest. The Divisional Forest Officer, North Kheri Division, filed an objection to the claim of the appellant that he had Sirdari rights in the said plots. An inquiry into the claim was started by the Forest Settlement Officer under sec. 7 of the Act and evidence of the parties was concluded on February 19, 1955. The case was adjourned for local inspection to March 3, 1955. The local inspection was not however held on the due date and was made instead on May 3, 1955 when the Forest Settlement Officer further directed that the case would be put up for orders, but it was not stated when. The record of the case shows that on May 9, 1955 the Forest Settlement Officer recorded an order under sec. 11(1) of the Act that the appellant had proved his claim, and directed the Divisional Forest Officer to "inform within 15 days whether he wants the land on payment of compensation or not". Sec. 11(1) reads:"In the case of a claim to a right in or over any land, other than a right-of-way or right of pasture, or a right to forest-produce or a water-course, the Forest Settlement-officer shall pass an order admitting or rejecting the same in whole or in part." Sub-sec. (2) of sec. 11 states:"If such claim is admitted in whole or in part, the Forest Settlement Officer shall either-(i) exclude such land from the limits of the proposed forest; or(ii) come to an agreement with the owner thereof for the surrender of his rights; or(iii)proceed to acquire such land in the manner provided bythe Land Acquisition Act, 1894."According to the respondents the order made by the Forest Settlement Officer admitting the claim of the appellant was passed without any notice to them and in their absence. The respondents case is that they came to know of this order on April 24, 1956 when the Forest Settlement Officer recorded another order stating:"Claim has been admitted in this case. The case will be included in the list to be forwarded to the Govt. When information from the Govt. is received in regard to the acquisition of land, further action will be taken under Section 11(2) (iii) of the Indian Forestfirst respondent, State of Uttar Pradesh, filed an appeal through the Divisional Forest Officer (respondent No. 2) in the Court of the Deputy Commissioner, Lakhimpur-Kheri on July 20, 1956 under sec. 17 of the Act. Sec. 17 allows an appeal to be preferred by any person who has made a claim under the Act or any Forest-officer or other person generally or specially empowered by the State Government in this behalf, against an order passed on such claim by the Forest Settlement Officer under sec. 11. The section prescribes a time limit of three months from the date of the order for presenting the appeal. The petition of appeal under sec. 17 presented in this case shows that it was directed "against the order dated 24.4.1956" and the prayer made in the petition was: "This appeal be allowed and the orders of the Forest Settlement Officer admitting the claim of the respondent be set aside with costs.....". The appellate tribunal repelling a contention raised by the claimant that the appeal was barred by limitation observed:"Since the order dated 9.5.55 was not delivered in the presence of the parties or after giving them any notice of date it cannot be said to have been delivered properly under the law. It is obvious that in case the Forest Settlement Officer had decided to pass an order determining the rights of the parties, it was incumbent on him to have duly informed the parties concerned both of the date of the order and subsequently of its content. This was clearly notthese circumstances it was held that the period of limitation should run from April 24, 1956 and not from the date of the first order. On the merits the appellate tribunal found on a consideration of the evidence that claim of Sirdari rights over the land in question had no basis and allowed the appeal by its order dated April 20, 1959. The tribunal also set aside another order releasing the disputed land in favour of the claimant which was passed by the Forest Settlement Officer during the pendency of theclaimant filed a writ petition in the High Court at Allahabad challenging the order of the appellate tribunal as without jurisdiction on two grounds: first, the order passed on May 9, 1955 was set aside though the appeal was directed not against that order but against the order dated April 24, 1956 which was not an appealable order under the Act and, secondly, assuming the appeal was also directed against the earlier order, it was barred by limitation. On the first point the High Court took the view that since the prayer made in the petition of appeal was for setting aside the orders of the Forest Settlement Officer admitting the claim, the appeal must be held to have been preferred against both the orders. As regard s limitation, the High Court observed:"In the present case, the facts found show that though this order was purported to be passed on the 9th May, 1956 on that date the parties were not present and no notice of that date ha d been given to the parties. The finding of the Deputy Commissioner is that the Divisional Forest Officer actually came to know of that order only on the 24th April, 1956 and this fact does not appear to have been challenged o n behalf of the petitioner....... In these circumstances, we think that, on the principles governing the administration of justice, it should be held that so far as the Forest Department was concerned, the order should be deemed to have been passed on the 24th April, 1956 and the right of appeal granted to the Department should be determined on that very basis. This is actually what the Deputy Commissioner did. If we were to accept the submission on behalf of the petitioner that the limitation for filing the appeal must be computed from the date put down by the Forest Settlement Officer in the order itself, it can result in material injustice to the parties because there can be cases where a Forest Settlement Officer may make an order, sign it and keep it in his own custody without pronouncing it or informing the parties concerned. The order may see that light of day only after the expiry of three months and thus this interpretation would result in all concerned parties being deprived of the right of appeallearned Judges of the High Court added, "even if we were to hold that the appeal was time-barred", in the circumstances stated above, they would still not consider this to be "a fit case for interference by this Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution." On this view the High Court dismissed the writ petition on May 9, 1966. The appellant had also filed a revisional application to the State Government under sec. 18(4) of the Act against the order of the appellate tribunal which the State Government rejected by its order dated March 9, 1960. The writ petition refers to this unsuccessful revisional application in stating the facts, but it contains no prayer for quashing or setting aside the order of the State Government.

Reasoning:
appears that the prayer made in the petition of appeal refers not only to orders in the plural, but also describes them as orders admitting the claim of the respondent, though, of course, the order dated April 24, 1956 was not one admitting the claim and as such was not appealable. Thus though the date of the earlier order was not mentioned in the petition of appeal, there can be no doubt that the appeal was also directed against thatis clear that the publication of the notification serves as notice to the aggrieved party and enables him to make an application under sec. 64A within the prescribed time limit. This case therefore does not support the appellant.The Act we are concerned with does not state what would happen if the Forest Settlement Officer made an order under sec. 11 without notice to the parties and in theirwould be absurd to think so. It is a fundamental principle of justice that a party whose rights are effected by an order must have notice of it. This principle is embodied in Order 20, Rule 1 of theCode of Civil Procedure; though the Forest Settlement Officer adjudicating on the claims under the Act is not a court, yet the principle which is really a principle of fair play and is applicable to all tribunals performing judicial or quasi-judicial functions must also apply to him.High Court in the case before us was therefore right in holding that the impugned order should be deemed to have been passed on April 24, 1956 when the Forest Department came to know of the order and "the right of appeal granted to the Department should be determined on that verycannot permit the appellant to question the findings of fact in this appeal. As regards the order passed by the State Government on the revision petition filed by the appellant, it appears that though the appellant referred to the said order in the writ petition there is no prayer in the petition for setting aside or quashing that order. As the validity of this order was not questioned before the High Court, the appellant cannot be allowed to raise the question at thisthis case the order under sec. 11 was recorded by the Forest Settlement Officer on May 9, 1955, and the appeal under sec. 17 filed on July 20, 1956 was obviously long out of time if the impugned order could be said to have been made on May 9, 1955 when it wasCourt observed that the words "date of the order" could not mean the date of the knowledge of the order in the absence of clear indication to that effect. If the decision stopped with the above observation it would have undoubtedly lent support to the appellants contention, but the Court having made the observation went on to consider the question what the expression "d ate of the order" meant. This is what the Court said:"This still leaves open for investigation the problem as to what is the date of the order. According to the appellant the date when the Regional Transport Authority passed the resolution is the date of the order. Against this it is urged on behalf of the bus operators that it is the date when that resolution was brought into effect by the publication of the notification which should be considered to be the date of the order. In our opinion, the respondents contention should be accepted. For, it is a fallacy to think that the date when the Regional Transport Authority passed the resolution was the date on which the fixation of theor the discontinuance of the old bus stand was ordered. It has to be remembered in this connection that Rule 134 itself contemplates that the fixation or alteration of bus stands would be made by a notification. It is only on such notification that a notified but stand comes into existence. So long as the notification is not made there is in law no effective fixation of a new bus stand or discontinuance of the old bus stand