Illegal : Rejecting applications for deleting land records from prohibitory list of land by relying solely on webland record.: High Court of Andhra Pradesh
Rejecting mee-seva application by relying solely on webland records and assignment proceedings of D-form patta and not considering revenue records and Govt. issued memorandums is illegal. A single-judge bench comprising of Justice M.Ganga Rao adjudicating in the matter of Guttula Subhramanyam v. The State of Andhra Pradesh (WRIT PETITION No. 15305 of 2021) dealt with the legality of the direction passed by the Respondents.
In the present case, the Petitioner had purchased the land of 198 square yards situated at Kolamuru Village, Rajamahendravaram Rural Mandal of East Godavari District through registered sale deed documents bearing Nos.6215/2002, dated 10.12.2002 and 3210/2004 dated 14.05.2004 respectively registered in the office of the Sub- Registrar, Rajamahendravaram and since then the Petitioner has been enjoying the possession of the same. When the Petitioner presented the sale deeds before the respondent for registration of the land in favour of buyers, he was informed by the Respondondet that the land in Kolamuru Village is included in the prohibited property list u/s-22A of the Registration Act and imposes restriction for registration.
In lieu of such prohibition, the petitioner made a mee-seva application to the Respondent for deletion of the subject property land from the list of prohibited property. In Response to such application the Respondent submitted a report stat that,’’ the total of an extent of Ac 11.68 cents of Kolamuru Village of Rajamahendravaram Rural Mandal is classified as “Government Poramboke” and mentioned as “Kankara Gutta Sthalam”. And Later the same was re-classified as “Government Dry” and assigned to “Sri Chavali Rama Murthy Sastry” during the year, 1933 and the changes was incorporated in the Register.
The assignment of the land was made in the year 1933 as per G.O.Ms.No.575 Revenue (AssntI) Department, dated 16.11.2018, wherein the Government directed the revenue authorities to remove the lands which were assigned prior to the year 1954 from the prohibited properties list under Section 22-A of the Registration Act.
The Respondent accordingly recommended to remove the land to the total extent of Ac 11.68 cents in a survey of Kolamuru Village of Rajamahendravaram Rural Mandal from the prohibited properties under Section 22A(1)(b) of Registration Act, 1908.
The Petitioner contended that the rejection of petitioner’s Mee-seva application was illegal, arbitrary, and contrary to the evidence to which the Respondent replied that the subject land is government land as per webland records and after thorough verification of the assignment proceedings of D-form patta, the subject land will be deleted from the prohibited property list. Hence, the rejection of the Mee-seva application of the petitioner cannot be said to be illegal and arbitrary.
The Court after considering both the sides stated that ,” instead of considering the petitioner’s mee-seva application in its proper perspective and objectively as per the law, simply rejected the application which is illegal and arbitrary. The endorsement of the respondent is declared as illegal, arbitrary and contrary to the evidence on record.
The court found that the ,“District Collector without considering the land records and the recommendations , simply rejected the application of the petitioner for deletion of his land from the prohibited property list stating that, as seen from the webland records, the subject land was entered as Government land and noted as Kankaragutta land. The District Collector would not have been carried away by the webland record which is contrary to the revenue records available before him by stating that the subject land will be deleted from the prohibited properties list only after verification of assignment proceedings of D-form patta and moreover he did not even take into consideration the G.O.Ms.No.575, dated 16.11.2018 and issued an endorsement illegally. Therefore, the District Collector is directed to re-consider the petitioner’s mee-seva application by considering the recommendations and other revenue records and pass appropriate reasoned order of deletion of the petitioner’s land from the prohibited property list as per law, within a period of four (4) weeks from the 6 date of receipt of copy of this order and communicate the same to the petitioner.”