The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the provisions of the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, particularly Section 63, Section 65, and Section 65A, to the dispute over the change of land use and the liability to pay conversion tax.

ORDER :

Order in Civil Application (for Condonation of Delay) No. 358 of 2024

The delay occurred in filing the instant Letters Patent Appeal has been explained to the satisfaction of the Court. Hence, delay is condoned. Present Civil Application is allowed. The Appeal be treated to have been filed within time. Registry is directed to give pakka number to the Appeal.

Order in Letters Patent Appeal No. 65 of 2024

1. The present intra-court appeal is filed against the judgment and order dated 31.03.2023 passed by the learned Single Judge, whereby the writ petition filed by the respondents herein seeking to challenge the order dated 27.02.2019 passed by the Revenue Department and consequential orders and communications of the Collector have been held to be untenable in the eye of law and are, accordingly, quashed and set aside.

2. We may note, at the outset, that by setting aside the orders passed by the Revenue Department and consequential orders of the Revenue Authorities, the learned Single Judge has directed to pass necessary orders for change of use of the land-in-question within a period of eight weeks from the date of the order i.e. 31.03.2023.

3. It seems that no order came to be passed in compliance of the order of the learned Single Judge and the Misc. Civil Application (extension of time) No. 2 of 2023 in Special Civil Application No. 18381 of 2017 had been filed which was allowed vide order dated 26.05.2023, noticing the statement of the learned Assistant Government Pleader and the stand of the applicants in the application that the Authority had received the copy of the judgment on 08.05.2023 and they needed few more weeks for passing of the orders for change of use of land-in-question. In light of the said fact, the learned Single Judge had granted six weeks further time to pass necessary orders. Misc. Civil Application filed by the State-appellants herein has been disposed of by the learned Single Judge, accordingly.

4. It seems that the instant appeal has been filed as an afterthought as it has been presented on 02.01.2024 after a delay of 229 days. We may note that the explanation offered by the State appellants seeking for condonation of delay has already been accepted by us being satisfactory. We, therefore, do not find any reason to deliberate on the issue as pressed by the learned Senior Advocate Mr. Shalin Mehta appearing for the respondents herein about the conduct of the State appellants in proceeding to file the instant appeal.

5. Coming to the merits of the case, we may note that certain facts in brief are relevant to be noted herein. The petitioners herein are the purchasers of the land-in-question, which was a restricted tenure land, after getting a permission from the Collector under Section 63 of the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (for short ‘the Tenancy Act’ 1948). There is no dispute about the fact that by the order dated 05.09.1997 permission was granted by the Collector under Section 63 of the Tenancy Act, 1948, on the conditions mentioned therein, for the sale of the land-in-question in favour of the petitioner. One of the conditions of transfer as indicated in the order of permission dated 05.09.1997 is relevant to be noted herein-under:

“Permission under Section 65 of the Land Revenue Code shall be obtained within one month from the date of this order and the construction has to be completed within three years.”

6. There is also no dispute about the fact that the petitioners herein had fulfilled the conditions of transfer and applied for conversion of the land-in-question from agricultural purposes to non-agricultural purposes under Section 65 of the Gujarat Land Revenue Code, 1879 as per the above extracted condition of the order of the Collector.

7. The order of conversion of the land-in-question from agricultural use to non-agricultural use was passed by the District Development Officer of the concerned District Panchayat, Vadodara on 29.06.1998 on the payment of Rs. 87,900/- towards