Syed Mahaboob Raju vs Habibsha Garibsha

Nain, J.—This is a revision application u/s 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The petitioner alleges that he is the owner of Survey Nos. 54 and 55 situated in village Angalgaon, Taluka Partur, District Parbhani, and that he is in possession of the said lands. The opponent filed against the petitioner a suit in the Court of the Mamlatdar at Partur, under the Mamlatdar''s Courts Act II of 1906, alleging that he was in possession of the suit lands and that the petitioner was causing obstruction to him. On October 28, 1963, the Mamlatdar dismissed the suit holding that the opponent was not in possession of the said lands. Against this, the opponent filed a revision application before the Collector. This revision application was heard by the Deputy Collector and by a judgment dated November 29, 1964, he allowed the revision application. He set aside the finding of fact of the Mamlatdar that the opponent was not in possession of the suit lands.

Section 23 of the Mamlatdars'' Courts Act, being Bombay Act No. II of 1906, provides that there shall be no appeal from any order passed by a Mamlatdar under the Act, but the Collector may call for and examine the record of any suit under the Act, and if he considers that any proceeding, finding or order in such suit is illegal or improper, he may, after due notice to the parties, pass such order thereon, not inconsistent with the Act, as he thinks fit. The Collector has power to delegate the revisional powers to a Deputy Collector and it is by virtue of such delegated powers that the Deputy Collector appears to have heard the revision application.

In a revision application, the revisional authority ought not to interfere with the finding of fact of the lower Court, unless its finding is manifestly perverse or unreasonable. The learned Deputy Collector was wrong in coming to the conclusion that he was entitled to call for the records of the lower Court and to go into the findings of fact of the lower Court. He thought it was open to him to correct the flaws of the lower Court on questions of fact also. The reason for coming to this conclusion was that, according to him, the Mamlatdars'' Courts Act expressly barred an appeal and, therefore, in a revision application even questions of fact should be interfered with "for the sake of justice". The learned Deputy Collector also seems to think that u/s 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the revisional Court is entitled to go into all questions decided by a lower Court, whether of fact or law, and to come to its own conclusion. I think, the learned Deputy Collector entertains a misconception about the scope of a revisional application. It is only in an appeal that findings of fact can be gone into and reversed. In a revision application, where the power to revise prescribes that the revisional Court may consider the question of legality and propriety of a finding of the lower Court, as is the case u/s 23 of the Mamlatdars'' Courts Act, the revisional Court can only go into questions of law, unless a finding of fact is manifestly perverse or unreasonable. In this case, on going through the record, I do not find that the finding of fact of the Mamlatdar was either perverse or unreasonable. The scope of a revision application, u/s 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, is still more restricted and only questions of wrong exercise of jurisdiction, failure to exercise jurisdiction and acting in the exercise of jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity, can be gone into.

In my opinion, the learned Deputy Collector had no jurisdiction to revise the findings of fact of the Mamlatdar. I, therefore, set aside the judgment of the learned Deputy Collector dated November 19, 1964, and allow the petitioner''s revision application with costs. Rule made absolute.