Navaniti Prasad Singh, J. – The present intra-Court Appeal is by private respondent No 4 to the writ petition, being aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 15th of January, 2009 passed in CWJC No 10199 of 1989.

2. The facts are not in dispute. One Ram Sakhi Devi, wife of Shri Hari Narain Singh, the parents of the appellant were in possession of certain lands. By a registered sale deed dated 01.03.1973, she sold some part of the said land to the writ petitioner Umesh Prasad Singh who is respondent No 4 in this appeal. At this time, it is not in dispute that consolidation proceedings had been going on under the provisions of the Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956 (for brevity, the Consolidation Act). The appellant was about 17 to 18 years of age on the day when this transaction took place. It appears that when the consolidation proceedings were concluded, serious objections were taken by the villagers which were enquired into and decisions were taken to renotify the consolidation process which was, accordingly, done in the year, 1981. Thereafter, upon application having been made, the land register, in so far as the present land is concerned, was amended after hearing the parties. This also happened early in 1982. It may be noted that in these proceedings, the appellant had appeared and supported the sale having been made by his mother and it is on basis of that, the land register was amended. It appears, thereafter, the appellant got wiser. After about 15 years of sale, as made by his own mother which he himself had acknowledged before the Authority on basis of which land register was amended, he filed an application before the Collector which was registered as Application No 107 of 1987-1988 for declaring the sale deed dated 01.03.1973 to be void. It is consequent to this, order was passed by the Collector that the sale, having been affected without permission/consent of the consolidation authorities, the sale deed was declared void. Against the order of the Collector, the writ petition was filed by the purchaser/writ petitioner and allowed. Hence, the appeal.

3. On behalf of the writ petitioner, contesting respondent in this appeal, it is submitted that looking to the fact that the son of the vendor, who had himself acknowledged the sale, cannot, after 15 years of the sale, ask the Collector to declare the sale deed void not for any other purpose or not on any ground of misrepresentation, non-payment of consideration money, right, title but on a hyper technical ground that permission to sell had not been obtained by his mother. Having obtained benefit as a consequence of the sale and not having protested within reasonable time and the mother being alive, not having protested or herself not having moved the authorities, it was improper on the part of the Collector, after such unreasonable delay, to interfere. For the said purpose, learned counsel for the contesting respondent relies on the judgment dated 01.07.2015 of Division Bench of this Court passed in LPA No 375 of 2010 (Panna Devi vs. State of Bihar & Others). On the other hand, Shri Shravan Kumar, learned Senior Counsel places reliance on the judgment of Full Bench of this Court dated 11.05.2010 in LPA No 375 of 2010 (Panna Devi vs. State of Bihar & Others) (Full Bench) since reported in 2010 (2) PLJR 1066 wherein it has been held that the sale deed executed, without permission of authorities, under the provisions of the Consolidation Act, would be void for all purposes.

4. In our view, in view of the judgment of the Full Bench, there can be no dispute that the sale deed could be void for not having taken permission of the consolidation authorities but, as was held by the Division Bench after the judgment of Full Bench, the exercise of power by the Collector, after unreasonable delay and after 15 years, could not be countenanced. The Collector ought not to have interfered in the matter after this unreasonable delay. The Division Be