Shri Shyam Lall And ORS. v. The Secretary Revenue And ORS.

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA

[ CIRCUIT BENCH AT PORT BLAIR ] *** WPA/223/2025 Shri Shyam Lall and Others Vs.

The Secretary Revenue and Others Mr. K. Vijay Kumar .... for the petitioners Ms. Babita Das ... for the respondent nos.1 to 3 Mr. Arul Prasanth .. for the private respondent June 12, 2025 [SR] Item No.11 Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits as follows. The petitioners are the legal heirs of one Karuppaiah against whom a complaint was lodged by the private respondent No. 4 alleging wrongful possession of land. The said complaint was registered as revenue case being TPB/RC/NO/1088/2024 in which an order was passed on 04th October, 2024 observing that the Tehsildar could not pass any order since the period of dispossession was more than two years. Aggrieved by the said order, the respondent No. 4 preferred a Revenue Appeal. The respondent no.

2 passed an order dated 28th March, 2025 pursuant to which the respondent No. 3 passed an order dated 03rd April, 2025 directing the petitioners to vacate the alleged unauthorized occupation by 15th April, 2025. Challenging the same, a second appeal was preferred by the petitioner on 10th April, 2025. But, the same was not taken up for hearing. So the petitioners have approached this Court.

03.04.2025 passed by the respondent no.3 for a particular period. There is much merit in this application. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the private respondent denies the allegations and relies on a decision of a Coordinate Bench of this Court passed on February 26, 2025 in WPA/849/2023 ( G.Narasimham and others vs The Secretary (Revenue) and others). There relying on the decision of the Hon'ble Apex court in Rajendra Agricultural University vs. Ashok Kumar Prasad and others reported at (2010) 1 SCC 730, this Court held that the Secretary (Revenue) could only assume jurisdiction after formal publication of notification in the Official Gazette, thereby marking the commencement of the procedure depicted in the notification dated 13.10.1978.

However, no such formal publication of the said notification was done in the official gazette. Therefore, no appeal would lie before the Secretary (Revenue). An appeal could only be preferred before the Lieutenant Governor, which was not done. As the position of law has been made clearly by the Coordinate Bench in G.Narasimham and others (supra), no appeal would lie before the said Secretary (Revenue). It further appears that the petitioner filed the said appeal before the Secretary (Revenue) on 10.04.2025, which was after passing of the order in G.Narasimham and others (supra) on 26th February, 2025.

Be that as it may, as the petitioners are faced with an order of eviction and they had preferred an appeal before the wrong forum, the writ petition is disposed of by granting the petitioners liberty to file an appeal before the Lieutenant Governor within thirty days from this date, which if filed, shall

then be considered in accordance with law and as expeditiously as possible.

Till such period of thirty days, the petitioners shall not be evicted from the said premises.

It is clarified that merits of the case have not been gone into by this Court.

As the writ petition has been disposed of without calling for affidavits, the allegations leveled against the respondents shall be deemed to have been denied.

With the above observations and directions, the writ petition is disposed of.

Urgent certified copy of this order be supplied to the learned counsels for the parties upon compliance of usual formalities.

( Jay Sengupta, J. )