P. Aswarthamma, v. The State Of Andhra Pradesh,

THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTI CE A.RAMALI NGESWARA RAO Writ Petition No.7466 of 2018 Order:

The petitioner states that she is the absolute owner and possessor of the land of an extent of Ac.2-84 cents, situated in Survey No.120/2A of Palasamudram village, Gorantla Mandal, Ananthapur District, having purchased the same under a registered sale deed dated 29.11.1994. The fifth respondent - Tahsildar also issued pattadar passbooks and title deeds in her favour. When she intends to sell the said land to some third party and approached the sixth respondent for registration of the document, he refused to register the same and made an endorsement to that effect on 16.11.2017 stating that as per the instructions of the second respondent, the land in the said survey number was included in the list of prohibited properties under Section 22-A(1)(a) of the Registration Act, 1908 and cannot be registered. Challenging the same, she filed the present Writ Petition.

This Court in Vinjamuri Rajagopala Chary v. State of A.P.1 considered the said issue and held as follows: 35.1 Further, as noticed earlier the State Government is empowered either suo motu or on application to consider the grievances against inclusion of any property in the prohibitory list under Section 22-A of Registration Act and is also empowered to de-notify either in full or in part the notification issued under subsection (2). In our opinion, the redressal mechanism is available only with respect to notifications published relating to the properties falling under clause (e) of Section 22-A.

Hence, any grievance of the parties with reference to the properties covered by clauses (a) to (d) will have to be questioned by the aggrieved parties only by appropriate proceedings before a competent Court and the adjudication by such Court would be final. Further, so far as notified properties falling under clause (e) are concerned, the redressal mechanism under sub-section (4) of Section 22-A would be able to effectively address the grievance provided the mechanism thereunder is effective, expeditious, fair, and judicious.

Governments of both the States to constitute a Committee or establish a Forum within time frame, may be comprising of Principal Secretary of Revenue, Director of Survey and Land Records and a retired Judicial Officer of the rank of a District Judge which shall meet periodically to consider the grievances of the persons affected by the notifications. The Committee shall be empowered to examine relevant records and then pass a reasoned order either accepting or rejecting the grievance by either confirming/deleting/modifying any such property from the notified list of properties. In our view, such orders passed by the Committee shall be binding on the State as well as on the aggrieved person and in the event of any of them being aggrieved thereby, they shall have to approach a competent Court of Law for redressal of their grievance.

Now, it is stated that a committee is constituted for dealing with the issues relating to deletion of properties which were included under Section 22(1) of the Act and in view of the same, the petitioner is given liberty to submit an appropriate representation to the said committee for deletion of the above property under Section 22(1) of the Act. As and when such representation is filed, the committee shall consider the same and pass appropriate orders thereon within a period of three (3) months from the date of filing such representation.

The Writ Petition is, accordingly, disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs.

As a sequel thereto, the miscellaneous petitions, if any, pending in this writ petition shall stand closed.

__________________________ A.RAMALI NGESWARA RAO, J Date: 07.03.2018 Nsr