Uma Sankar Upadhya vs State Of U.P. and Others

Hun''ble Pankaj Mithal, J.—Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. In respect of certain plots the name of Lal Ji, son of Ram Deo was recorded. Respondent no. 5 Lalla Ram, son of Ram Deo filed an application u/s 33/39 stating that in the revenue records the name of Lal Ji is wrongly entered and his actual name is Lalla Ram. On the said application case no. 41 u/s 33/39 was registered and after getting the report from the Tehsildar an order was passed by the Up Zila Adhikari on 11.3.2011 to correct the name of respondent no. 5 as Lalla Ram, son of Ram Deo in place of Lal Ji, son of Ram Deo.

Aggrieved by the said order petitioner filed revision which has been dismissed vide order dated 17.10.2011.

It is contended that a suit for partition u/s 176 of the Act between the parties is pending therefore, mutation/correction should await its decision.

Admittedly, the name of Lal Ji, son of Ram Deo was appearing in the revenue records. The said name has been deleted and has been corrected to Lalla Ram. Petitioner is not the person aggrieved by the said order. In case, any one is aggrieved by it, he is Lal Ji and no one else.

Moreover, the writ petition arises out of mutation proceedings/correction of revenue entries.

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 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 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. It is expected that the respondent no. 3 before whom suit for partition u/s 176 of the Act is said to be pending pending will make all possible efforts to decide the same in accordance with as expeditiously as possible preferably within a period of six months from the date of production of the certified copy of this order.