Hon'ble Dr. KOTHARI, J.—In the present set of writ petitions there is an interesting controversy as to whether the Revenue Department of the State Government can demand conversion charges for use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes by the present petitioners, which are situated in the colony area covered under the provisions of Rajasthan Colonisation Act, 1954 or other than colony area, the khatedari agricultural land covered by the provisions of Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956.

2. The petitioners have set up brick kilns on their respective agricultural lands and some of the brick kilns fall in colony areas on the agricultural land allotted to the petitioners under the Colonization Act, 1954, which area includes command land (irrigated through canals or water courses constructed by the State Government like Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojna etc.) or uncommand land and the petitioners have set up their brick kilns on their such agricultural lands, after obtaining mining leases from the Mining Department for excavation of brick earth, a minor mineral.

3. The present writ petitions are directed against the show cause notices issued by the revenue authorities like Addl. Collector or Tehsildar, Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh etc.,who have called upon the petitioners to show cause and demanded the conversion charges for use of such agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes under Section 90-A of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956.

4. By interim orders, different coordinate benches have allowed the brick kilns operation without payment of conversion charges for the time being. The respondent revenue departments have filed reply to the writ petitions in some of the cases, which on their request was treated as adopted reply in all the cases and with the consent of learned counsels for the parties, the arguments were heard finally at the admission stage itself.

5. Mr. J.L.Purohit, Sr. Advocate assisted by Mr. C.S.Kotwani, Mr. B.S.Sandhu, Mr. A.K.Singh, Mr. Hemant Jain, Mr. Mahaveer Bishnoi, Mr. Vishal Jangid and Mr. Trilok Joshi appeared and argued on behalf of the petitioners, whereas, Mr. Sandeep Bhandawat and Mr. Hemant Choudhary appeared and argued on behalf of the Revenue Departments of the State Government.

6. The sheet anchor of the arguments of learned counsel for the petitioners before this Court was that for setting up of the brick kilns by the petitioners on their agricultural lands, they had obtained prior mining leases from the Mining Department of the State Government and only under such mining leases they were excavating the minor mineral i.e. Brick earth from their agricultural fields and were manufacturing bricks in the kilns erected by them on such lands, therefore, the State Government could not demand further conversion charges from the petitioners as the lands in question should be deemed to have been converted for user for non-agricutural purposes with the grant of mining leases by the Mining Department and relying upon some previous judgments of this Court, they urged that the revenue authorities had no jurisdiction to issue the impugned show cause notices demanding the conversion charges under Section 90A of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act,1956 and they could not interfere with the functioning of Mining Department from whom the petitioners had already obtained the mining leases and this Court has already held that manufacturing of bricks in the brick kilns is covered by the terms of mining leases and the revenue authorities cannot simultaneously demand any conversion charges, premium or the lease charges from the petitioners. They also submitted that similar conditions contained in 1966 Rules were struck down by this Court and, therefore, the revenue authorities cannot now again demand the conversion charges from the petitioners and the present writ petitions deserve to be allowed quashing the show cause notices and demand of the conversion charges from the petitioners.

7. Reliance placed upon by the p

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