Revenue authorities must comply with higher court decisions and cannot impose restrictions that have been legally overturned.

ORDER :

1. Heard learned advocate Mr.Jay Thakkar on behalf of the petitioners and learned Assistant Government Pleader Mr.J.K.Shah on behalf of the respondent – State.

1.1. Learned advocate Mr.Thakkar seeks permission to join the Deputy Collector as well as the Mamlatdar as party respondents. Permission is granted. Appropriate amendment to be carried out forthwith.

2. By way of this petition, the petitioners challenge an order dated 10.01.2025 passed by the Collector, Anand more particularly whereby the Collector has refused NA permission to the present petitioners. The petitioners have further challenged an order passed by the Collector subsequent to the order granting NA whereby the Collector has inter alia taken the entry in favour of the present petitioners in suo motu revision and whereas, vide the order / notice referred to hereinabove, the Collector has directed status-quo to be maintained over the land in question.

3. Considering the submissions made by learned advocate, it would prima facie appear that the order rejecting NA has been on the ground that the land in question, according to the authorities concerned, had been allotted to the predecessor of the present petitioners subject to restrictions under sub- sections (7) and (8) of Section 32(P) of the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act. It is pointed out by learned advocate Mr.Thakkar in this regard that the issue which is sought to be raised by the State Authorities is completely beyond their jurisdiction to have gone into.

3.1. It is pointed out by learned advocate that the predecessor in title of the present petitioners had inter alia initiated revision application being TEN/BA/198/2015 and whereas, in the said proceedings, the GRT vide order dated 01.10.2015 had, while allowing the revision application, set aside the orders passed by the Deputy Collector as well as the Mamlatdar and ALT and had further set aside the order dated 28.01.1968 whereby the land had been allotted to the predecessor of the petitioners subject to restrictions under Section 32(P)(7)(8) of the Tenancy Act and had inter alia further declared that the land is free from all encumbrances under the said Act.

3.2. It would appear that thereafter, the petitioners and their predecessor in title had filed an application for grant of NA permission and whereas, vide an order dated 04.04.2019, the Resident Additional Collector had inter alia rejected the application on the ground of an appeal pending before this Court. It would further appear that the petitioners had challenged the said decision before this Court by preferring Special Civil Application No.22103/2019 and whereas, vide an order dated 26.12.2019, a learned Coordinate Bench of this Court while quashing and setting aside the order dated 04.04.2019 had inter alia noted that while the learned Coordinate Bench had adjourned the matter to 19.12.2019 vide order dated 13.12.2019 for the purpose of the learned AGP to take instructions, whereas, between the said dates, the State had filed a writ petition challenging the order passed by the Tribunal of the year 2015. The learned Coordinate Bench was of the opinion that the said writ petition was filed with an attempt to overreach the process of the Court and whereas, the action on the part of the respondent no.2 in the said writ petition i.e. State Authorities had been deprecated.

3.3. Furthermore, vide an order of the very selfsame date i.e. 26.12.2019, the learned Coordinate Bench had rejected the Special Civil Application No.23144/2019 i.e. the petition preferred by the State challenging the order passed by the GRT dated 01.10.2015 referred to hereinabove. In the said decision also, the learned Coordinate Bench had observed that the writ petition was being rejected on the ground of delay and whereas, the learned Coordinate Bench had very clearly observed that the conduct of the petitioners i.e. State Authorities was nothing but an attempt to overreach the process of the Court.

3.4. It would app