M Simhachalam v. State Of Ap

THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE A.RAMALINGESWARA RAO WRIT PETITION No.44992 OF 2017 ORDER:

The petitioner states that he is the absolute owner and possessor of agricultural landed property admeasuring Acs.1.00 cents in Survey No.257/3 and Acs.2.00 cents in Survey No.257/4 situated in Burja Village, Seethanagaram Mandal, Vizianagaram District and that the said property was purchased by the petitioner under a registered sale deed. Originally, the said property belongs to late D.N.Suryanarayana and others, who filed petition under Section 11(a) of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 for grant of ryotwari patta and the Settlement Officer disallowed their claim. Then, they filed revision before the Director of Settlements, Hyderabad, and they could not succeed. Thereafter, they filed revision before the Board of Revenue, which remanded the matter for fresh enquiry.

After the enquiry, the Settlement Officer, Visakhapatnam, granted patta as they are landless poor persons. The opposite parties challenged the same by way of revision, which was dismissed and hence, the order of the Settlement Officer has become final. While so, the petitioner intended to sell the said properties to third parties and approached the third respondent and when the third respondent refused to receive and register the said properties as the same was included in the prohibition list, the present writ petition is filed.

This Court in Vinjamuri Rajagopala Chary and Others vs. 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 sub1 2016 (2) ALD 236 (FB) = 2016 (1) ALT 550 (FB)

section (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.

Thus, in order to make an effective redressal mechanism, we deem it appropriate to direct the respective 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. In view of the same, the petitioner is given liberty to approach the said Grievance Redressal Committee for appropriate relief by making proper application. At this stage, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Grievance Redressal Committee was not constituted and there is no one to redress the grievance of the petitioner.

orders on the grievance expressed by the petitioner, within a period of four weeks thereafter.

The writ petition is accordingly disposed of. Miscellaneous petitions, if any, pending in this writ petition shall stand closed. There shall be no order as to costs.

__________________________ A.RAMALINGESWARA RAO, J 25.01.2018 pln