State Of Madhya Pradesh and Ors vs Seth Balkishan Nathani and Ors

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeals Nos. 370 and 371 of 1960

Decision Date: 30 January 1963

Coram: Raghubar Dayal, J.R. Mudholkar, Subba Rao

In this case the petitioner was the State of Madhya Pradesh together with other parties, and the respondents were Seth Balkishan Nathani and several others. The judgment was delivered on 30 January 1963 by a bench that included Justices Raghubar Dayal, J. R. Mudholkar and Subbarao K. The citation of the decision is reported as 1967 AIR 394 and 1964 SCR (1) 793. The matters before the Court concerned the execution of perpetual pattas, the recording of land holdings in revenue records, and the powers of various revenue officials under the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1950 (Madhya Pradesh Act 1 of 1951) and the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1947. The specific statutory provisions mentioned were sections 3(2), 4(2), 13(1), 15(1) and 40 of the Madhya Pradesh Act, and sections 45(1)(2)(4), 46 and 47(1)(2) of the Central Provinces Act.

According to the record, Respondent No. 1 was the proprietor and lambardar of two mouzas. He executed perpetual pattas in favour of the other respondents. In the subsequent annual revenue papers the first mouza was entered as an occupancy tenancy held by Respondents 2 through 6, and a similar entry was made for the second mouza in the names of Respondents 2 through 6. After the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act, 1950 came into force, section 3 of that Act provided notice of the estate of Respondent 1. Acting under section 40 of the same Act, the Deputy Commissioner of Land Reforms recognized Respondent 1 as the pattadar of the first mouza and settled the assessment payable by him in respect of that mouza.

Later the Nistar Officer began proceedings to correct the old annual papers with a view to reopening the earlier order made under section 40. Respondent 1 objected, claiming that the Nistar Officer lacked jurisdiction to interfere, but the objection was rejected. An appeal filed by Respondent 1 before the Revenue Board was also dismissed. Regarding the second mouza, the Nistar Officer ordered that the transfers made by Respondent 1 were bogus and that the landlord was not cultivating the land. The respondents then instituted writ petitions in the High Court challenging both Nistar Officer orders. The High Court held that the Nistar Officer possessed no power either under section 15(3) of the Madhya Pradesh Act or under section 47(1) of the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1947.

The present appeals were filed by special leave. Before this Court it was contended that (1) under section 47(1) of the Land Revenue Act the Nistar Officer had jurisdiction to correct entries made for earlier years in a later year on the ground of mistake, and (2) that the officer also had jurisdiction to review, under section 15(3) of the Madhya Pradesh Act, the order made by the Deputy Commissioner under section 40.

The Court held that neither section 13 nor section 15(3) of the Act had any relevance to an order issued by the Deputy Commissioner under section 40 of the same Act. It further observed that section 47(1) of the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act did not empower a correction of entries on the ground of mistake, and it approved the decision in Mangloo v. Board of Revenue, 1 L.R. 1954 Nag. 143. Accordingly, the Nistar Officer was found to lack jurisdiction to amend the entries for the purpose of reopening a matter that had already been closed under section 40 of the Act.

This judgment concerned civil appeals numbered 370 and 371 of 1960, which were filed by special leave against the judgment and order dated 8 March 1956 of the former High Court of Judicature at Nagpur (now the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur) in the miscellaneous writ petitions numbered 22 and 274 of 1955. Counsel for the appellants appeared, and counsel for respondents numbered 2 to 6 also appeared. The judgment was delivered on 30 January 1963 by Justice Subba Rao. The two appeals challenged the common decision of a Full Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur rendered in writ petitions numbered 92 of 1955 and 274 of 1956, which had been filed by respondents 1 and 3 to 6 in that court.

In the first appeal, respondent 1, Seth Balkishan Nathani, was identified as the proprietor and lambardar of Mouza Sonpairi in the tahsil and district of Raipur. On 14 January 1947, he executed perpetual pattas in favour of his then‑living wife, Vashodabai, and also in favour of respondents 4, 5 and 6 concerning khudkasht and grass lands of Mouza Sonpairi. The tabdili jamabandi for the year 1946‑47 recorded those lands as occupancy tenancy holdings belonging to respondents 4 to 6 and to respondent 2, Govindlal Nathani, who was the legal representative of the deceased Vashodabai. The same entry continued to appear in the jamabandi records of subsequent years.

The Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Right (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1956 (Act 1 of 1951), hereinafter referred to as “the Act,” came into force on 22 January 1951. In due course, the estate of the proprietor was duly notified under section 3 of the Act. Subsequently, on 25 March 1952, the Deputy Commissioner of Land Reforms, acting under section 40 of the Act, recognized Seth Balkishan Nathani as the pattadar and fixed the assessment payable by him for Khasra numbers 28912 and 366/7 of Mouza Sonpairi. No appeal was lodged against that order.

Afterwards, the Nistar Officer, who also held the position of Additional Deputy Commissioner of Raipur, initiated proceedings against the respondent with the aim of correcting the old annual papers of Mouza Sonpairi. The purpose of those proceedings was to reopen the earlier order made under section 40 of the Act, on the ground that the earlier order had been based on the entries appearing in the tabdili jamabandi of 1946‑47 and the subsequent years.

In the proceedings initiated by the second appellant, respondent 1, Seth Balkishan Nathani, objected that the appellant lacked jurisdiction to commence the action. The objection was rejected, and the appellant issued an order directing that, at the next hearing, five witnesses could be produced to prove cultivation; the names of the purchasers to whom the lands had been sold were to be obtained from the Patwari, a notice served on them requiring the filing of statements and production of sale‑deeds, and that the hearing was fixed for 4 August 1954, permitting non‑applicants to submit any additional evidence they wished. The order thereby indicated that the second appellant intended to inquire into both the fact of cultivation and the validity of the sale‑deeds through which respondent 1 had created interests in the other respondents. Respondent 1 appealed this order to the Board of Revenue, Madhya Pradesh, but the board dismissed the appeal on the ground that it was premature. Consequently, the respondents filed writ petition No. 22 of 1955 in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

Civil Appeal No. 371 of 1960 concerned the patti of Mouza Kachna in the Tehsil and District of Kaipura, where respondent 1 was the proprietor and ambardar. On 19 February 1948, Seth Balkishan Nathani executed perpetual pattas in respect of the lands in favor of the same respondents named in the earlier appeal. The annual records listed those lands as Occupancy Tenancy Holdings of respondents 2 through 6. On 8 December 1954, the second appellant inspected the lands and on the following day issued an order stating that obvious mistakes had been discovered in the government documents—Khasra, Jamabandi, and Tabdilat—and that those mistakes had been corrected in the Patwari papers. The order further alleged that the ex‑proprietors, namely Balkishan Nathani and others, together with Narayan Rao, had executed wholly fictitious transfers in favor of family members such as Kamlabai, Pana Bai, Yashoda Bai, Chhote Bai of the Nathani family, and Kamla Bai Chitnavis, wife of Narayan Rao, and that the Patwari had entered names without cultivation or agricultural possession contrary to the Land Record Manual, Volume 1. The appellant corrected the erroneous entries after a spot inspection and directed that the corrected papers be filed. This order demonstrated that the second appellant regarded the transfers made by respondent 1 to the other respondents as bogus and that he had amended the annual entries to reflect that the landlord was not cultivating the lands as previously recorded. In response, the respondents filed writ petition No. 274 of 1955 in the High Court seeking to quash the order. A Full Bench of the High Court held that neither section 15(3) of the 1956 Act nor section 47(1) of the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1917, conferred any power on the Nistar officer to review the order concerning cultivation facts or occupancy rights, thereby allowing the two writ petitions to stand and prohibiting the officer from further proceedings that might affect the occupancy tenancy rights of the petitioners.

The provision of the 1917 Land Revenue Act, hereinafter referred to as the Land Revenue Act, gave the Nistar officer authority to review orders that had already been issued concerning the fact of cultivation or the occupancy rights that were recognized under the relevant sections of that Act. Consequently, the High Court allowed the two writ petitions that sought to set aside the proceedings initiated by the Nistar officer in the case of Mouza Sonpairi and the order dated 9 December 1954 that the officer had passed in the case of Mouza Kachna. The Court also prohibited the officer from taking any further action that might affect the occupancy tenancy rights of the petitioners in the lands that were in dispute. These orders gave rise to the two appeals that are now before this Court.

Mr Sen, counsel for the appellants, presented two questions for consideration. First, he contended that Section 47(1) of the Land Revenue Act vested the Nistar officer with jurisdiction to correct entries that had been made for earlier years, but only in a later year, when a mistake was discovered. Second, he argued that the same officer also possessed jurisdiction, under Section 15(3) of the same Act, to review an order that he himself had issued pursuant to Section 40 of that Act.

Mr Pai, counsel for the respondents, urged the Court to dismiss the appeals on two grounds of abatement. He asserted that the second petitioner had died after the arguments were heard by the High Court but before the judgment was delivered, and that the petition filed by the appellants seeking to set aside that abatement had been dismissed. He further claimed that the second respondent in the appeals died on 7 March 1956, and that an application filed on 28 June 1957 to set aside the abatement and to bring the legal representatives of the deceased on record was untimely. On the merits, he asked the Court to uphold the High Court’s judgment for the reasons set out in that decision.

The Court indicated that it was prepared to agree with the High Court’s interpretation of the two questions raised by the appellants’ counsel, and therefore it would not examine the preliminary objection raised by the respondents’ counsel. The two questions in this case are closely linked, and their answers depend upon the proper construction of the relevant provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1950 (Act 1 of 1951) and the Land Revenue Act. For convenience, the Court reproduced the pertinent excerpts. Section 3(2) of the 1950 Act provides that after a notification is issued under subsection (1), no right may be acquired in or over the land covered by that notification except by succession or by a written grant or contract made on behalf of the State, and that no new clearings for cultivation or any other purpose may be made in such land except in accordance with rules that the State Government may prescribe. Section 4(2) clarifies that, notwithstanding the provision in subsection (1), the proprietor shall continue to retain possession of his homestead, home‑farm land, and any other land that he cultivated after the agricultural year 1948‑49 but before the date of vesting.

The Court noted that, in the Central Provinces, the proprietor also retained rights over land that he had brought under cultivation after the agricultural year 1948‑49 but before the date on which vesting of the land occurred. Section 13(1) provides that, when a statement of claim is received, or when no claim is received within the period prescribed, the Compensation Officer must, after conducting such enquiry as he deems appropriate and after giving the claimant an opportunity to be heard, determine the amount of compensation payable to the claimant. The Officer must then record, in the prescribed form, the details of the land that will vest in the State Government upon acquisition in lieu of payment of that compensation, together with any other particulars that the rules may prescribe. Section 15(1) states that any person who is aggrieved by the decision or the record made by the Compensation Officer under Section 13 may appeal to the Deputy Commissioner. Section 15(3) further authorises the Compensation Officer, the Deputy Commissioner or the Settlement Commissioner, either on their own motion or on an application filed within the period prescribed by any interested party, to review an order passed by themselves or by any of their predecessors and to pass a further order in reference to it as they think fit. x x x x x Section 40, as amended on 22 October 1951, provides that any land not included in the home‑farm but brought under cultivation by the proprietor after the agricultural year 1948‑49 shall be held by the proprietor in the rights of an occupancy tenant. Under clause (2) of the same section, any person who becomes an occupancy tenant pursuant to rule I shall be deemed a tenant of the State. Clause (3) directs that the Deputy Commissioner shall determine the rent payable on such land and that the rent shall be payable from the date of vesting of the proprietary rights. Section 84 declares that, except where the Act itself provides otherwise, an appeal shall lie from every decision or order of a Revenue Officer made under this Act or under the rules made thereunder as if such decision or order had been passed by that officer under the Central Province Land Revenue Act, 1917, or the Berar Land Revenue Code, 1928, as applicable. The Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1917, contains Section 45, which in clause (1) requires that a record‑of‑rights for each mahal or estate be prepared or revised, as the case may be, by the Settlement Officer at settlement and, for such mahals or estates as directed by the Provincial Government, by a Revenue Officer empowered by the Provincial Government during the currency of a settlement. Clause (2) specifies that the record‑of‑rights of a mahal shall consist of the following documents: (a) a Khewat or statement of persons possessing proprietary rights in the mahal, including inferior proprietors, lessees or mortgagees in possession, specifying the nature and extent of each interest; (b) a Khasra or field‑book, in which the names of all persons cultivating or occupying the land, the right in which it is held, and any rent payable are entered; and (c) a jamabandi or list of persons cultivating or occupying land in the village. x x x x x (4) The documents specified in sub‑section (2) shall be prepared in such form and shall contain such additional particulars as may be prescribed by rules made under Section 227. Section 46 provides that, on the application of any interested person or on his own motion, the Deputy Commissioner may, without prejudice to other provisions of the Act, modify any entry in the record‑of‑rights on one or more of the following grounds: (a) that all persons interested in such entry wish to have it modified; (b) that a civil decree has declared the entry erroneous; or (c) that, being founded on a decree or order of a Civil Court or on the order of a Revenue Officer, it is not, in accordance with such decree or order; x x x x x Section 47(1) directs the Deputy‑Commissioner to cause to be prepared, in accordance with rules made under Section 227, for each mahal annually or at such

In the provisions relating to the preparation of records of rights, the Act requires that the documents enumerated in sub‑section (2) be drawn up in the form prescribed by rules made under section 227 and that they include any additional particulars specified by those rules. Section 46 provides that, upon the application of any interested person or on the Commissioner’s own motion, the Deputy Commissioner may, without affecting any other provision of the Act, alter an entry in the record of rights if (a) all persons interested in that entry request the modification, (b) a civil decree has declared the entry to be erroneous, or (c) the entry is inconsistent with a decree, order of a civil court, or order of a revenue officer. Section 47 then obliges the Deputy Commissioner to cause, in accordance with rules made under section 227, the preparation of an amended set of the documents described in section 45, sub‑section (2), clauses (b), (c) and (d) for each mahal either annually or at longer intervals as may be prescribed; these amended documents are termed “annual papers.” Further, the Deputy Commissioner must ensure that, pursuant to the same rules, all charges that have arisen and all transactions that have affected any proprietary rights or interests in any land are duly recorded.

The operative scheme of the Act, as it applies to the present inquiry, may be summarized as follows: When the State Government issues a notification under section 3 with respect to an estate, all proprietary rights in that estate vests in the State. The Compensation Officer, upon receipt of a claim by the proprietor, conducts the enquiry mandated by the Act, determines the compensation owed, and specifies the land that vests in the State. However, the Act preserves certain interests of the proprietor from its full operation. One such preserved interest concerns land in the Central Provinces that the proprietor brought under cultivation after the agricultural year 1948‑49 but before the date of vesting, as provided by section 4(2). Under section 40(1), such land is held by the proprietor in the capacity of an occupancy tenant; subsection (2) makes the proprietor a tenant of the State, and subsection (3) empowers the Deputy Commissioner to determine the rent payable on the land, which becomes due from the date the proprietary rights vest. Section 84 confers a right of appeal on any aggrieved party against the Deputy Commissioner’s order to the authority prescribed by the Act, and the Act contains no provision granting the Deputy Commissioner the power to review his own order made under the cited sub‑section; consequently, such an order, subject to appeal, attains finality.

It was observed that the Deputy Commissioner, acting under the sub‑section that authorised him to determine rent, could not later review his own order because the statute provided no power for such a review; consequently, once an appeal was lodged, the Deputy Commissioner’s order became final. Accordingly, the order issued by the Deputy Commissioner concerning the lands in dispute, which fixed rent on the premise that the proprietor was an occupancy tenant, was deemed final. Because of this finality, the Nistar Officer, who was the second appellant, possessed no jurisdiction to commence proceedings to reopen the order relating to Mouza Sonpairi nor to issue a review order concerning the earlier determination for Mouza Kachna, as both orders had already attained final status and the Act contained no provision for their review. Nevertheless, counsel for the appellants argued that section 15(3) of the Act bestowed such a power. Section 15(3) permits the authority concerned to review an order made by it under section 13 of the Act, and section 13 deals with an order made by the Compensation Officer determining compensation and recording the land that would vest in the State. Neither section 13 nor section 15(3) applies to an order made by the Deputy Commissioner under section 40, and this distinction was sufficient to dispose of the appeals. However, because the High Court had also considered the construction of section 47(1) of the Land Revenue Act, the Court chose to address that issue as well. The argument based on that provision related more to the nature of the evidence the Deputy Commissioner could use in reaching a decision under section 40 than to the validity or finality of his order. Under section 40, the Deputy Commissioner must determine whether the proprietor cultivated the land after the agricultural year 1948‑49 and before the estate vested in the State, and a principal source of evidence for this inquiry is the annual papers prepared pursuant to section 47 of the Land Revenue Act. It was not contested that earlier annual papers showed the proprietor was cultivating the lands after 1948‑49. The contention was that, under section 47(1), the Deputy Commissioner could amend those entries in the years 1952 and 1954 to reflect that between 1949 and the date of investigation the proprietor had not cultivated the land. The Court held that such an amendment would be contrary to the scope and tenor of the relevant provisions of the Land Revenue Act and the rules made thereunder, since sections 45, 46 and 47 prescribe a specific procedure for modification of records of rights, and a mistake concerning cultivation in an earlier year does not constitute a ground for modification under section 46.

In the judgment, the Court set out the procedure laid down in section 47 of the Land Revenue Act. It explained that a “record of rights” is composed of the Khewat, the Khasra, the jamabandi and any other relevant documents, and that these documents must be prepared according to the rules issued under section 227 of the Act. The Court noted that either a person who has an interest in the record or the Deputy Commissioner acting on his own initiative may seek to modify any entry in the record of rights, but only on the specific grounds enumerated in section 46. Those grounds include a situation where all persons interested in the entry consent to its modification, where a civil decree has declared the entry to be erroneous, where a decree or order of a civil court or a revenue officer has been issued and the entry does not conform to that decree or order, and where such decree or order has later been altered on appeal, revision or review. The Court then observed that an error concerning cultivation by a particular individual recorded in a Khasra or jamabandi of a previous year does not fall within any of the grounds listed in section 46, and therefore cannot be corrected under that provision. Section 47, on the other hand, empowers the Deputy Commissioner to cause the preparation of an amended set of the documents mentioned in clauses (b), (c) and (d) of sub‑section (2) of section 45, either annually or at longer intervals prescribed by law; the documents prepared under this authority are called “annual papers”. The Court referred to the rules made under section 227, which appear in Chapter III of the Central Provinces Land Records Manual, Volume I, pages 13‑16, and explained that the rules governing the preparation of Khasra and jamabandi direct the Patwari to record annually any changes that he discovers after a local enquiry and personal inspection. Consequently, the Court concluded that the record of rights continues to consist of Khewat, Khasra, jamabandi and similar documents until such a record is revised again, and that entries may be altered only on the limited grounds specified in section 46. By contrasting sections 46 and 47, the Court clarified that section 47 is intended solely to update the documents by recording subsequent changes that arise from later events. The purpose of the annual papers, the Court held, is merely to capture the factual situation that exists at the start of a fasli year based on spot inspection, and to note any changes that occur during that year after it has closed. The annual papers are not intended to re‑examine or determine the correctness of entries that were made in earlier annual papers at the time they were entered. The Court then mentioned that the interpretation of section 47 had previously been examined by a Division Bench of the Nagpur High Court in the case of Mangloo v. Board of Revenue.

In the case under consideration, a tenant named Gaindoo died while holding a tenancy in mouzu Matia. His nephew and his widow submitted an application, after which the Assistant Superintendent of Land Records entered their names as joint tenants in the annual papers. Subsequently, the widow filed another application before the Superintendent of Land Records, requesting the removal of the petitioner’s name from those annual papers, and the Superintendent granted that request. The petitioner appealed this decision, and the Additional Deputy Commissioner refused to interfere, reasoning that the Assistant Superintendent had acted in his executive capacity and therefore the Superintendent was likewise competent to modify the entry in his own executive capacity. The petitioner then filed a second appeal to the Board of Revenue, which promptly dismissed the appeal. Before the High Court, it was argued that the Board of Revenue’s decision violated the provisions of section 47(1) read with section 33(2)(c) of the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1917. The learned judges of the High Court examined the scope of section 47(1) of the Act and the rules made under section 227, and they observed that these provisions dealt solely with the preparation of the annual papers and not with correcting erroneous entries. They described these provisions as enabling measures that did not restrict the power of revenue officers to correct mistakes or remove irregularities in the annual papers, noting that such corrections did not affect any party’s title or vested interest, and comparing the officers’ right to correct documents to a private person’s unrestricted right to amend his own documents, which could not be questioned in court by anyone whose rights were not affected.

The learned counsel argued that the passage contained contradictory ideas, first denying a right to correct entries and then permitting such corrections. The Court rejected this interpretation, explaining that the judges were addressing two separate aspects: the scope of preparing the annual papers and whether correcting mistakes gave rise to a cause of action for an aggrieved party. The Court clarified that section 47(1) and the corresponding rules pertained only to the preparation of the annual papers and not to correcting erroneous entries, and that the question of a party’s right to challenge such corrections was distinct. The Court’s observations on the scope of section 47(1) were supported by earlier discussion in the judgment at page 145, which had already examined the provisions and rules governing the preparation of annual papers. The Court further noted that, according to section 2(1) of the Act, the agricultural year began on the first of June, and that changes to entries were normally recorded after the year closed, not during the year. Consequently, the actions taken by the Superintendent and ratified by the Additional Deputy Commissioner did not relate to the preparation of the annual papers under section 47(1), and no other legal provision was shown to govern such corrections. The Division Bench concluded that no provision existed for correcting wrong entries in the annual papers because their scope was narrowly limited, a view later upheld by the Full Bench of the High Court, which is now before this Court on appeal.

The learned judges examined the provisions of section 47 and the rules made under the Act that govern the preparation of the annual land revenue papers. They observed that, under section 2(1) of the same Act, the agricultural year ordinarily begins on the first day of June and that the initial entry of data is normally made at the start of that year. The judges further noted that no alterations to the entries are contemplated during the course of the agricultural year, and any changes occurring within that period must be recorded only after the year has been closed. Consequently, the action taken by the Superintendent of Land Records and subsequently ratified by the Additional Deputy Commissioner was held to have no reference to the preparation of the annual papers as contemplated by section 47(1) of the Act. The Division Bench concluded that the statute provides no specific provision for correcting erroneous entries in the annual papers because the scope of section 47(1) is narrowly confined to entries made during the agricultural year. This reasoning was adopted by the Full Bench of the High Court, which affirmed the Division Bench’s view in the present appeal. The Full Bench expressed its confirmation by stating that section 47(1) of the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act contemplates entering only those changes that occur during the agricultural year and therefore does not cover correction of entries on the ground of mistake. The Supreme Court concurred fully with this interpretation, observing that the Nistar Officer lacks jurisdiction to amend the entries in order to reopen a matter that has already been closed pursuant to section 40 of the Act. Accordingly, the Court adopted the High Court’s conclusion and dismissed the appeals, awarding costs and ordering the payment of one set of hearing fees. The final order therefore dismissed the appeals with costs.