Ram Chandra and Others vs Mool Chand and Others

Ajay Rastogi

Instant petition is directed against orders of revenue authorities whereby concurrent finding has been recorded against the petitioners by all the three revenue courts viz a viz Assistant Collector, Revenue Appellate Authority and so also by the Board of Revenue but still the petitioners were not satisfied and preferred further review petition against order of the Board of Revenue and that also finally came to be dismissed, primarily on the premise that u/s 42 of Rajasthan Tenancy Act there is a prohibition that the land which belongs to scheduled caste shall not be transferred to non-scheduled caste person and in view thereof, the plea of adverse possession claimed by the petitioner could not be considered when there is statutory bar and the transaction is void under the Act. Respondent-plaintiffs filed a revenue suit against the present petitioners defendants u/s 188 & 92A of Raj. Tenancy Act and the petitioners defendants also filed their counter claim. The Assistant Collector vide its order dt. 29.03.2001 rejected the suit and counter claim and the RAA also affirmed the finding vide judgment dt. 10.04.2003 but the Board of Revenue decided the claim and counter claim after assigning detailed reasons vide order dt. 22.02.2007 and observed as under:-

As there being routine in the Board of Revenue of filing review petition as a matter of course, in the instant matter also a review petition came to be filed in 2007 and after having remained pending for almost five years finally came to be rejected on 03.07.2012.

The consistent plea raised throughout by the petitioner as regards adverse possession was negated by all the revenue authorities in view of Sec. 42 of the Act and observed that petitioners have no right to claim adverse possession in the light of mandate/prohibition u/s 42 and in view thereof no tenancy rights could be conferred to the petitioners on the plea of adverse possession when the action was void ab initio bad.

This Court has heard the counsel for petitioners at length and taking note of the finding being recorded by the Board of Revenue, does not find any manifest error being committed which may require interference by this Court. Consequently, the petition fails and stands dismissed.