JUDGMENT :

Apurba Sinha Ray, J. 

1. The Appellant-society’s challenge to the maintainability of the writ petition on the grounds of res-judicata or principles analogous thereto and pendency of the writ petitioner’s original application before the Tenancy Tribunal on similar causes, was overruled by the Learned Single Judge. It was held that the writ petition is not barred by the principle of res-judicata and further, the District Land & Land Reforms Officer, Malda issued the relevant notification not under any specified Act as mentioned in Section 2(r) of the West Bengal Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal Act, 1997 (Act of 1997 henceforth); rather, he issued the said notification under the auspices of a Committee as per West Bengal Land Reforms Manual, 1991 (Manual 1991 henceforth) which is nothing but a set of principles for guidance of the Officers of the Government of West Bengal. In this regard, the learned Single Judge relied upon the case law reported at 2014 (1) CHN (CAL) 544 (Bhandardaha Beel Matsyajibi Samabay Samity Ltd. Vs. State of West Bengal) and distinguished the case relied upon by the writ petitioner reported in AIR 1997 SC 1125 (L. Chandra Kumar Vs. Union of India & Ors.)

2. The writ petitioner’s case, in a nutshell, is that he was the successful bidder in a tender process conducted for grant of a lease of a Jalkar (Tank Fishery), namely, Gangapath Islampur R.S. Dag No. 557/1 Kaliachak-I, II & III. He paid 25% of the total amount as per notification dated 28.12.2017 on 15.02.2018 through DCR. By a letter dated 27.02.2018 the authority concerned reduced the area of Jalkar without assigning any cogent reason to the writ petitioner. The writ petitioner moved the Tribunal for quashing of such letter dated 27.02.2018 and subsequently moved this Court against an order passed by the Tribunal by filing a writ petition being W.P.L.R.T No. 31 of 2018. This Court set aside the said order of the Tribunal and directed the Tribunal to dispose of the matter afresh in a time bound manner. In the meantime, by memos dated 02.07.2018 and 11.07.2018, the lease of the writ petitioner was terminated and a lease was granted in favour of the private respondent without initiating a fresh tender process. Consequently, the present writ petition being no. 12340 (W) of 2018 was filed by the respondent no. 1 in this appeal. The appellant-society’s challenge to the maintainability of the writ petition was turned down by the Learned Single Judge in the manner already indicated hereinabove.

3. As regards the point of the writ petition being hit by the principle of res-judicata, the Learned Single Judge compared the prayers in different proceedings between the parties and came to a finding that the relevant writ petition having different set of prayers than the other two matters was not barred by the principle of res-judicata.

4. In overruling the second objection, the Learned Single Judge has come to the conclusion that as the concerned District Land and Land Reforms Officer did not issue the relevant notification as an authority under the specified Act within the meaning of the 1997 Act, or the notification was not issued under any specified Act, the bar under Section 2(r) of the West Bengal Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal Act, 1997 is not attracted. Further the learned Judge concluded that when the matter relates to settlement of tank fisheries, it is not governed by any specified Act within the meaning of Section 2(r) of the said Act of 1997. The Learned Single Judge has relied the decision of Bhandardaha Beel Matsyajibi Samabay Samity Ltd. (supra). His Lordship further concluded that the decision in L. Chandra Kumar (supra) is not applicable.

5. Against such interim order the present appeal has been filed by the appellant-society, namely, Mothabari Dhibar Samabay Samity Ltd., which is the respondent no. 12 in the writ petition, on the grounds, inter alia, that the observation of the Learned Single Judge in respect of res-judicata as well as t