Point of Law: Respondent-authorities are required to determine premium as on date payable by petitioner with respect to aforesaid alleged breach and in view of concession which has been given by learned Senior Counsel on specific instructions by petitioner, same shall be paid at earliest in a time schedule which may be determined by authority itself.

JUDGMENT :

1. By way of this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has challenged the legality and validity of the order dated 25.12.2003 passed by the learned Collector, Surat, as also the order dated 1.03.2004 passed by the Revisional Authority i.e. respondent No.2.

2. The grievance of the petitioner is that by way of an order dated 22.01.1973 the land bearing Survey No. 166-A ad-measuring 16 gunthas and 64 sq.yds situated in Village Olpad, Taluka Olpad, District Surat, came to be allotted by the learned Collector on payment of price being fixed at Rs.3,000/- at the relevant point of time on certain terms and conditions. According to the petitioner, the land was being utilised by the petitioner throughout, however, on account of the land being kharaba, the same was in a depressed and uneven condition and approximately more than Rs.1.00 lakh in those days were spent by the petitioner for levelling the same so that the use can be made. According to the petitioner, the Agro Service Centre was started after putting up construction and was carrying out the repairs of tractors, supply of oil engines, sale of spare parts, manure and other agro products like PVC pipes and pesticides etc. This activities remained uninterrupted right upto the year 1990, and it is only on account of one Chhaganbhai Punjabhai Patel, who made an application before the Collector, though was not concerned either with the petitioner or the land in question, and at his instance, an absolute vague notice came to be issued on 2/15-6/7-1999 after an unreasonable period. The said show-cause-notice was resisted by the petitioner but ultimately on 25.11.2003 an order came to be passed in exercise of the powers under Section 68 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code (for short “BLR Code”) directing the land along with the structures would be taken back in the name of the State Authority without any compensation.

3. The petitioner being aggrieved by the said order has preferred a revision application before the respondent No.2 authority, which was registered as Revision Application No.1 of 2004. However, according to the petitioner, without granting any opportunity of hearing, the authority was pleased to dismiss the revision application vide order dated 19.3.2004 by upholding the order passed by the Collector and it is against this order passed by the Revisional Authority as well as the order passed by the Collector, present petition is brought before the Court. Initially, by way of an order dated 6.4.2004, Rule was issued and vide ad-interim relief in terms of para 14(b), the protection was granted to the petitioner, which continued throughout and with this background, the present petition has come up for consideration before this Court.

4. Mr. R.R. Marshall, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of Marshall & Associates for the petitioner has vehemently contented that the order passed by the authority is ex-facie in gross violation of principles of natural justice and on this ground alone the impugned order passed by the revisional authority requires to be quashed and set aside. It has been further submitted that the revisional authority has exercised the powers after gross unreasonable delayed period since the original land is of the year 1973 and the notice which has been issued in the year 1999 and thereto the same is absolutely in a vague form, and as such, on the basis of the said notice, no proceedings could have been undertaken.

4.1 Mr. R.R.Marshall, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner has further submitted that the petitioner has not been given an effective opportunity to represent the case as no exact alleged breach of conditions have been spelt out in the notice itself and thereafter the order proceeded as if there is a gross violation of principles of natural justice and this tentamount to be violation of fair opportunity to the petitioner since the petitioner is deprived of making an effective representation in absence