The entitlement to khatedari rights under the Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 and the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955, must be determined in accordance with the provisions of the Acts and by considering all relevant factors and assertions raised by the parties.

Facts in brief :-

1. Sh. Devsi was in possession of a chunk of agriculture land admeasuring 95 bighas in Chak 3T in Suratgarh Tehsil as temporary cultivation lease holder. Devsi and his son Manphool filed separate applications on 22.5.1971 before the allotting authority claiming permanent allotment of the agriculture land in their possession. File no.2618 was opened in the name of Devsi and file no.2619 was opened in the name of Manphool. The allotting authority being the Colonisation Tehsildar passed an order dated 11.12.1972 under Rajasthan Colonisation (Allotment of Government Land to post 1955 Temporary Cultivation lease Holders and to other Landless Persons in the Rajasthan Canal Project Area) Rules, 1971 and approved allotment of the land in question to Devsi and Manphool. However, the Rules of 1971 were struck down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court which resulted into automatic cancellation of the order of permanent allotment dated 15.12.1972. Thereafter, an application was moved by Devsi and Manphool to the competent authority, S.D.O., Suratgarh under Section 15 AAA of Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 for grant of khatedari rights on the said chunk of land in the year 1980. During pendency of the application, Devsi passed away, upon which his wife Smt. Goran and daughter Reshmi were impleaded as applicants. The S.D.O., Suratgarh allowed the said application by the order (Annex.5) dated 18.4.1989 and granted khatedari rights for the entire land admeasuring 95 bighas to Devsi’s legal representatives i.e. the petitioners Manphool, Goran and Reshmi treating them to be separate units. The State of Rajasthan challenged the order dated 18.4.1989 passed by the S.D.O., Suratgarh by way of an appeal to the Revenue Appellate Authority which came to be partly allowed by order dated 15.2.1990 (Annex.6) and the khatedari rights accruing to the petitioners were curtailed to the extent of ceiling limit of 46.8 bighas holding that the entire chunk of land was earlier in possession of Devsi alone as a temporary cultivation leaseholder and thus, allotment of khatedari rights was only permissible to a single unit of the family within the prescribed ceiling area. Feeling aggrieved by the said order dated 15.2.1990, the petitioners preferred a revision before the Board of Revenue under Section 230 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act which was rejected by order Annex.7 dated 18.3.1997. The orders Annex.6 dated 15.2.1990 and Annex.7 dated 18.3.1997 are under challenge in this writ petition.

2. The case as set up by the petitioners in the writ petition is that the competent Courts were required to count Devsi the original land holder and his son Manphool to be separate units as per the definition of separate unit provided in Section 2(m) of the Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 (for short ‘the Act of 1973’). In the alternate, it is contended that as per the admitted family tree, there were seven members in total other than Devsi in his family and thus, member nos.6, 7 and 8 of the family were entitled to get individual share of 1/5th each of the total land covered by ceiling limit as per the Proviso below Explanation to Section 4 of the Act of 1973. A further case is set up that Suratgarh Tehsil is covered in desert area as per Clause (d) of the Schedule to the Act and thus, the ceiling limit for such area would be 175 standard acres as per Section 4(h) of the Act.

3. Shri Varun Goyal, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that none of these aspects were objectively considered by the Courts below whilst deciding the controversy and as such, the impugned orders being bad in the eye of law, deserve to be set aside.

4. Per contra Shri O.P. Boob, learned GC vehemently opposed the submissions advanced by the petitioners’ counsel. However, he too was not in a position to dispute the fact that the pertinent assertions raised on behalf of the petitioners before the Revenue Appellate Authority and Board of Revenue regarding; (a