The importance of correctly identifying the section under which an objection is filed and the requirement for supporting claims with evidence and legal provisions.

Barin Ghosh and Navaniti Pd.Singh JJ.

1. An objection filed under Sec. 12A of the Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956 by the appellant succeeded and the appeal preferred against the order allowing such objection was rejected. However, the revisional authority upsetted the success of the appellant before the Consolidation Officer as well as before the Appellate Authority and hence the appellant approached this Court challenging the order of the revisional authority by filing a Writ Petition. The Writ Court having dismissed the Writ Petition, the present Letters Patent Appeal has been filed.

2. It is the contention of the appellant that in fact the objection, as was filed, was filed under Sec. 10 of the Act and not under Sec. 12A of the Act. The Consolidation Officer as well as the Appellate Authority treated the objection and the appeal respectively as having been filed by taking recourse to Section 12A of the Act. In order to suggest that mentioning of Sec. 12A by the said authorities was an inadvertent error, it was required at least to allege in the Writ Petition as well as in the Memorandum of Appeal filed in this Appeal that no draft scheme had been published under Section 12 of the Act before the objection was filed. No such allegation was made. That being the position it is not open for the appellant to contend that the said objection and the appeal were not under Sec. 12A of the Act, but were under Sec. 10 of the Act.

3. The right to file objection under Sec. 12A has been granted to challenge scheme of consolidation prepared under Sec. 11 of the Act and published under Sec. 12 of the Act. At that stage, for the first time, no person can come and say that he wants to alter the register of land prepared under Section 9 of the Act and published under Sec. 10 of the Act by substituting therein himself in place of the person, whose name had been recorded in the said register of land as the raiyat thereof on the ground that the person applying is entitled to hold the land and the person whose name had been recorded is not entitled to hold the same. Sec. 10A of the Act makes it abundantly clear.

4. Be that as it may, the case of the appellant was founded on the entries made in the cadestral survey and recording of the name of the appellant in Register-II by the revenue authority. The fact remains that in the cadestral survey it was shown that two brothers, one of them being the grandfather of the appellant, were the raiyats of the land in question; whereas the ancestors of the respondents were shown as sikmidars under such raiyats. It was contended that there was a partition in between the grandfather of the petitioner and his brother, but at no stage of the proceedings any evidence was brought on record to suggest any such partition. It was next contended that the brother of the grandfather died issueless. It was accordingly suggested that the property thus devolved upon the grandfather of the appellant as the raiyat thereof. It was next contended that the sikmidars either abandoned or died issueless. As regards abandonment, no evidence was brought on record. It was not suggested that those sikmidars, who died issueless, did not leave any heir. In addition to that it was shown that the State of Bihar through its revenue authority, upon entering the name of the appellant in Register-ll, acknowledged the appellant as the person responsible to pay rates and taxes pertaining to the land in question and that the entry of the appellant in the said register was made upon rejection of the objections filed thereto by the respondents.

5. The fact remains that as against those pleadings and contentions, the respondents brought on record that from 1920 they or their ancestors were paying rent to the landlord, i.e., the erstwhile zamindar. The erstwhile zamindar while filing return in 1957 in terms of the provisions of-the Land Reforms Act declared that the respondents are the raiyats of the l