Lok Nath Mishra vs State of U.P. and Others

Hon''ble Pankaj Mithal, J.—Heard Learned Counsel for the petitioner.

The dispute is regarding recording of the land as pond. For which purpose petitioner applied for correction u/s 33/39 of U.P. Land Revenue Act, 1901.

The orders passed have been set aside and the matter has been remanded by Board of Revenue.

Petitioner has filed this writ petition against the order of remand dated 22.9.2011 passed by the Board of Revenue.

The law is well-settled that:

(i) mutation proceedings are summary in nature wherein title of the parties over the land involved is not decided;

(ii) mutation order or revenue entries are only for the fiscal purposes to enable the State to collect revenue from the person recorded;

(iii) they neither extinguish nor create title;

(iv) the order of mutation does not in any way effect the title of the parties over the land in dispute; and

(v) such orders or entries are not documents of title and are subject to decision of the competent court.

It is equally settled that the orders for mutation are passed on the basis of the possession of the parties and since no substantive rights of the parties are decided in mutation proceedings, ordinarily a writ petition is not maintainable in respect of orders passed in mutation proceedings unless found to be totally without jurisdiction or contrary to the title already decided by the competent court. The parties are always free to get their rights in respect of the disputed land adjudicated by competent court.

The present case does not fall in any of the above exceptions.

In view of the above, as no substantive rights of the parties have been decided or are likely to be decided in the pending proceedings, no case for exercise of extra-ordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is made out.

Accordingly, I dispose of the writ petition with direction to the authority concern to complete the mutation correction proceedings if any in accordance with law as expeditiously as possible preferably within a period of three months from the date of production of the certified copy of this order with liberty to the parties to get their rights over the land in dispute, if necessary, adjudicated or declared by the competent court of jurisdiction. The order passed in the mutation correction proceedings would abide by the decision of the competent court, if any, and the said court would not, in any manner, be influenced by any finding or observation made in the mutation orders or during mutation proceedings.