Case Analysis of The State of Andhra Pradesh v. T. Suryachandra Rao

Bench:

Willes, Byles, and Keating J.

Facts:

• Respondent as declarant submitted a declaration as regards determination of his ceiling limit of land under the Act.
• The Appellate Tribunal on 16.11.1978 declared the ceiling limit of the declarant to be surplus and declared 0.4388 S.H. land to be in excess of the ceiling limit.
• Later on, certain lands were surrendered and surrender was accepted by order dated 8.5.1991 by the Additional Revenue Divisional Officer, Land Reforms Kakinada.
• But the surrendered land was had already been acquired in proceedings under the L.A. Act. The land was thus considered as surplus land.
• The order was passed after verifying the records of the land acquisition proceedings.
• An appeal was filed in Appellate tribunal but was dismissed.
• Under Section 21 revision was filed before HC, which by the impugned order held that it was for the Tribunal to have considered the correctness of the declaration made by the declarant.
• It was held that even though power was available to the Tribunal to reopen the matter and pass necessary orders when fraud was practiced, in the instant case the Tribunal having accepted the matter after enquiry, it was not open to take a different view.
• It was held that under Section 10(3) of the Act, the Tribunal has to make an enquiry after statement relating to surrender is filed. Merely because in the statement it was indicated that some land was proposed to be surrendered there was no scope for reopening the matter even though the land was not available to be surrendered.

Argument raised by Appellant:

The appellant argued that the approach of tribunal is completely wrong, there lies no dispute in the fact that land which was offered for surrender was already acquired under L.A. Act and there was no scope for respondent to offer the surrendered land. They argued hat such act is fraud and High Court was not justified in its view.

Argument raised by Respondent:

The respondent argued that after inquiry the land that was offered for surrender was accepted. Hence, it was open for the tribunal to take note of any acquisition earlier.

Judgment:

The court held:

"The order of the High Court is clearly erroneous. There is no dispute that the land which was offered for surrender by the respondent had already been acquired by the State and the same had vested in it. This was clearly a case of fraud. Merely because an enquiry was made, Tribunal was not divested of the power to correct the error when the respondent had clearly committed a fraud."

By stating the Ram Preeti Yadav's case, the court defined fraud as:

“Fraud is a conduct either by letter or words, which induces the other person or authority to take a definite determinative stand as a response to the conduct of the former either by words or letter. Although negligence is not fraud but it can be evidence on fraud.”

Court based its judgment on principles and the facts in hand and stated that Tribunal was justified in modifying the earlier order and varying it ;and the Appellate Tribunal was not at fault for holding it and HCs order is set aside.

Appeal was allowed with no cost.

Keywords:

1. Mandal Revenue Officer i.e. Revenue Officer
2. Land Reforms Appellate Tribunal, East Godavari i.e. The Appellate Tribunal
3. Land Reforms Tribunal, Kakinada i.e. Tribunal
4. Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 i.e. Act
5. Land Acquisition Act, 1898 i.e. The L.A. Act