1. This petition is filed under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India against the orders passed under the provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947 (herein after referred to as “the Act”).

It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner purchased the land bearing Survey No.52-A-1-3 ad-measuring 13 Gunthas situated in village Retlav, Taluka Pardi by registered sale deed in the year 1986. The petitioner is an agriculturist and having adjacent land bearing Survey No. 54-A-3. Above said transaction of sale was considered by the Deputy Collector in breach of the Act. The Deputy Collector, therefore, initiated proceedings under section 9 of the Act and the case was registered as Breach of Fragment/225/93. In the said case, the petitioner appeared and pointed out that the petitioner purchased the land because the petitioner was already owner of the contiguous land and if the contiguous land is taken into consideration, then, total area of both would be more than 20 gunthas which was the limit prescribed for the fragment. The Deputy Collector, however, came to the conclusion that the petitioner was not the sole owner of the contiguous land, and as petitioner being the co-owner of the land, she could not be considered to be in possession of contiguous land and therefore, the sale transaction was in breach of the provisions of the Act. Accordingly, the Deputy Collector passed order dated 31.1.1996 cancelling the said transaction holding to be in breach of the provisions of the Act. The Deputy Collector also imposed penalty of Rs.250.00 on the original owners of the land and passed further order for removing the petitioner from the possession of the land in question.

Above order of the Deputy Collector came to be challenged by the petitioner before the State Government i.e. Principal Secretary (Appeals) Revenue Department by preferring Revision Application under section 35 of the Act. In the Revision Application, the petitioner raised two important contentions. One is that the petitioner was though co-owner of the land, however, for the purpose of deciding the proceedings under the Act, rights as co-owner of the adjacent land were required to be taken into consideration and if the petitioner was co-owner of the contiguous land for which there was no dispute, the petitioner could not have been said to have committed breach of the provisions of the Act because the land under purchase with the land of which the petitioner was co-owner would be, together, more than 20 gunthas and in that case, there would not be any breach of the provisions of the Act. Second main contention raised by the petitioner was to the effect that the proceedings under the provisions of the Act were initiated against the petitioner in respect of the purchase of the land after unreasonable long delay of eight years and, therefore, action of declaring the sale transaction as invalid and in contravention of the Act could not be sustained. The Revisional Authority, however, considered and decided only one contention out of the two, that is about the co-ownership of the petitioner of the land contiguous to the land purchased by the petitioner whereby there would be no breach of the provisions of the Act. The Revisional Authority has not considered the important contention raised by the petitioner about initiation of the proceedings under section 9 of the Act against the petitioner after unreasonable long delay of more than eight years. As regards the first contention raised by the petitioner, the Revisional Authority came to the conclusion that the petitioner alone was not the owner of the land bearing Survey No. 54-A-3 ad-measuring 08 gunthas but there were other three persons who were the joint owners of the said land whereas the land purchased in the year 1986 is purchased only in the name of the petitioner, therefore, the land in the co-ownership of the petitioner that is Survey No. 54-A-3 ad-meas