S. K. Jha, J.

All these applications under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India involve common sets of fact and identical questions of law. The petitioner in all these applications are the same. The contesting respondent is respondent No. 3, respectively, in all the applications. The relief prayed for in each of the writ petitions is for issuance of an appropriate writ quashing the initiation of a proceeding under section 48E of the Bihar Tenancy Act, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) by virtue of the order sheet (Annexure 2) to each of the writ petitions, and the notice issued to the petitioners in each of the cases has been appended as Annexure 3, respectively.

2. The short facts relevant for the disposal of these applications may be stated in a very narrow compass. Messrs Jute and Gunny Brokers Private Ltd. (petitioner no. 1) is a joint family firm of petitioners 2 to 5 who are said to be members of a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshra school of Hindu Law, of which petitioner no. 2, Sri Suraj MalMohta claims to be the karta. The entire land held and possessed by the petitioners has been described and set out fully in Schedule 1 of each of the writ petitions, according to which, as the petitioners allege, they hold and possess a total area of 38.84 1/4 acres of land in village Khalilpura and 2.93 acres of land in village Phulwarisharif. Thus, they claim to hold and possess a total area of 41.77 3/4 acres of land, including homestead, horticultural and agricultural lands. At the instance of respondent no. 3 in each of these applications, through Annexure 1 to each of them, respectively, the present proceedings under section 48E of the Act, have been started against the petitioners. In each of these Bataidari cases initiated by the Deputy Collector, Land Reforms, Danapur, Patna (respondent no. 2) the petitioners filed petitions objecting to the continuance of the proceedings on a number of grounds. The grounds inter alia, were that the joint family of five persons holding a total area of 41 acres and odd lands which were neither irrigated by canal nor by lift irrigation work fell far beneath the area protected under section 48C, provisos (a) and (b) read with Explanation IV to that section of the Act. Another ground of attack was that the claim put forward by the various claimants claiming under-raiyati or Bataidari rights in the lands in question was absolutely false and frivolous and had been inspired by some extremists.

3. In the writ applications a point with regard to the constitutional validity of section 48E of the Act, and the rules framed there under was also raised. Mr. Kailash Roy, learned counsel for the petitioners, mildly tried to reagitate the same question over again, but in view of a series of Bench decisions of this court the initial one being that of Ram Narain Singh V. The State of Bihar AIR 1973 Pat 275 followed by various other Bench decisions, the point is no longer available to be re-agitated. I would accordingly hold, in view of the Bench decisions, that neither section 48E, excepting subsection (11) there of, which sub-section has already been declared ultra vires, nor the rules framed there under in any way suffer from the vice of unconstitutionality.

4. Learned counsel then submitted that in any event in the case of Ram Narain Singh (supra) the Bench deciding that case has clearly held that if a false and frivolous and mala-fide case is prima facie proved, then the proceeding shall have to be dropped. From the different petitions as well as the assertions made in these petitions learned counsel wanted to establish that with regard to the same block or plot of land quite a number of the so-called Bataidars had cropped up. This obviously showed that the claim put forward by the contesting respondent no. 3, respectively, of each case could not be said to be bona fide. Although this point has not been specifically taken in Annexure 4 to each of the writ petitions, the gener