The legal principle established is that Rule 116 of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886, requires abandonment of interest by the proprietor for the Deputy Commissioner to strike out their name from revenue records, and lawful owners do not lose rights over land due to trespass by encroachers.

I.A. Ansari, J.

1. By its letter, dated 30.05.2007, Department of Revenue and Disaster Management, Government of Assam, requested the Deputy Commissioner, Dibrugarh, to take action in terms of the provisions of Rule 116 of the Registration Rules framed under the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886 (in short, 'the ALRR') in respect of 236 Bighas, 3 Kathas and 15 Lechas out of the total land acquired from Beheating Tea Estate, the request for taking action under Rule 116 being made on the ground that out of the said total land acquired from Beheating Tea Estate, land measuring as much as 236 Bighas, 3 Kathas and 15 Lechas is under the occupation of people other than Beheating Tea Estate. Based on the letter, dated 30.05.2007, aforementioned, Deputy Commissioner, Dibrugarh, issued, on 04.06.2007, a notice, addressed to the present petitioner, as proprietor of the said tea estate, to show cause as to why the Grant No. 13/176 ORR, made in respect of the said 236 Bighas, 3 Kathas and 15 Lechas of land, which stand acquired by the Government under Land Acquisition Case Nos. DRA 7/2006 and DRA 12/2006, but is not being utilized for cultivation and is in the occupation of people other than the said tea estate, be cancelled. With the help of this application made under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner challenges the legality and validity of the notice, dated 04.06.2007, aforementioned and seeks to get the same set aside and quashed, the case of the petitioner being, in brief, thus:

(i) By a registered Sale Deed, the petitioner's father, in order to expand the area of his tea estate, known as Beheating Tea Estate, purchased, during his lifetime, vide registered sale deed, dated 17.10.1969, two plots of land measuring, in all, 383 Bighas, 4 Kathas, 19 Lechas. Upon the purchase, so made, the petitioner's father occupied the said land and started tea cultivation thereon. Upon purchase of the said land and coming into occupation thereof, the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioner and, after his demise, the petitioner planted tea bushes on most part of the land and the remaining part of the land, where tea bushes were not planted, were being utilized for ancillary purposes. This apart, due to the system of rotational plantation of tea, which the petitioner has been following, certain portions of the land, so purchased, remained vacant; but, at all material times, the entire land was utilized by the said tea estate for tea cultivation and for the purposes ancillary thereto. The land so purchased, forms part of the Lepetkatta Division of the said tea estate. In the year 1976, the petitioner had surrendered as much as 117 Bighas, 4 Kathas, 13 Lechas of land of the said tea estate as ceiling surplus land and the remaining areas have been utilized for rotational plantation of tea by the petitioner. In terms of Rule 40A of the Settlement Rules, framed under the ALRR, the settlement-holder of a land, who has not been utilizing the land for ordinary cultivation after the date of publication of Original Notification, dated 24.09.1931, but is found to have been utilizing the land for special cultivation, such as, tea, such settlement-holder was liable to pay premium at the rate fixed by the State Government. Acting upon the provisions of Rule 40A, the State Government directed the grantees of the tea estates to produce evidence of such land having been leased out to them for special cultivation, such as, tea. As most of the grantees were British Companies and as they had left during and after the independence, the present owners of the tea estates could not produce the evidence in respect of any grant/lease made in their favour. It was, therefore, inferred by the Government that the land, which were being utilized for special cultivation, such as, tea, had been actually settled for ordinary cultivation. The Government, therefore, decided to convert the settlement of such land from ordinary cultivation to settlement