A Revenue Officer has jurisdiction under Section 44(2a) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act to adjudicate an objection that a particular tenancy does not exist.

In this Rule the subject-matter of challenge is an order under section 44(2a) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act passed by the Assistant Settlement Officer, Kalna Settlement Camp, revising entries in a number of Khatians of Mouza Kashipur.

2. The ground that section 44(2a) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act is ultra vires has not been urged before me. It was also not disputed that the impugned proceedings under section 44(2a) were not barred by limitation. The only point taken before me is that an Officer exercising his power under section 44(2a) bas no jurisdiction to decide as to whether title to the land has been obtained by any benami document and such question of benami can be decided only by a Court of competent jurisdiction. According to the petitioners, in the instant case, the Assistant Settlement Officer, Kalna Settlement Camp, had exceeded his jurisdiction by entering into questions of title.

3. I hold that the petitioners are not entitled to get any relief in the instant Rule. In the first place, any person aggrieved by an order passed in revision under sub-section (2a) may appeal in the prescribed manner to a Tribunal appointed for the purpose of section 44(2a) within such period and on payment of such court fees as may be prescribed. When the petitioners no longer dispute the jurisdiction of the Assistant Settlement Officer, Kalna Settlement Camp to initiate the proceedings under Section 44(2a), I find no sufficient reasons why this Court should invoke its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution in favour of those who did not exhaust the remedies provided under Section 44 (3) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act. These petitions involve determination of disputed questions of fact, and, therefore, a tribunal under Section 44(3) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act would be in a far more advantageous position to weigh evidence and to decide whether the tenancies originally recorded in Khatians in question were really created and were subsisting at the date of vesting~ In the facts of this case I am not inclined to embark on a detailed enquiry for resolving disputed questions of fact concerning revision of entries in the relevant khatians.

4. I am also unable to accept the extreme submission made on behalf of the petitioners that an officer specially authorised under Section 44(2a) to revise record of rights cannot even incidentally consider questions of title to plots entered in a particular khatian. Section 39(1) inter alia empowers the State Government to direct that the record of rights be prepared or revised for carrying out the purposes of the Act. The West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act provides for acquisition of estates, or rights of an intermediaries therein and of certain right of raiyats and under-raiyats and also the rights of certain other persons in lands comprised in estates. Upon publication of the notifications under Section 4 of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act all estates and rights of every intermediary vested in the State free from in-cumbrances with effect from the date mentioned in such notifications. The Section 5 of the Act not only provides for vesting of all rights of intermediaries, but also provides that on and from the date of vesting certain classes of tenants shall be holding directly under the State, as if the State was the intermediary. Section 6 confers upon the intermediaries rights to .retain certain classes of lands. It is unnecessary for our present purposes to refer other Sections of the Act.

5. The Records of Rights have been prepared in order to carry out the purposes of the Act. For the above purpose the Revenue Officer is bound to adjudicate whether a particular right claimed by a person prima facie existed and to make entries or deletions as the case may be in appropriate columns of the revisional record of rights. In a given case where a person claimed that in terms of clause (c) of sub-section (1) of section 5 he has be