Point of Law: existence of an alternative remedy whether adequate or not, does not alter the fundamentally discretionary nature of the High Court’s writ jurisdiction and, therefore, does not create an absolute bar on the exercise of the writ jurisdiction by the High Court. I

ORDER :

1. Instant writ petition has been filed by petitioner-Company with the following prayers:

2. I have heard learned counsels for the respective parties.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the khatedari land measuring 07 bigha 09 biswa was acquired by a partnership firm, namely M/s Assam Roller Flour Mills vide registered Sale Deed dated 27.09.1960 and thereafter got it converted into industrial under the provisions of Rajasthan Industrial Areas Allotment Rules, 1959. Consequent thereto, a lease deed between M/s Assam Roller Flour Mills and Government of Rajasthan was executed on 13.07.1966 and got registered on 10.08.1966.

4. The industry established on the disputed land by the firm had to be closed down in the year 2000 and in the beginning of 2003 the firm applied for re-conversion of this land into agricultural land. At that time, Rule 13 and Rule 14 of the Rajasthan Industrial Areas Allotment Rules 1959, permitted such re-conversion. The difference in both the rules was that Rule-13 gave the absolute right to get the land re-converted into agricultural, whereas Rule-14 dealt with the situation where a person intended to use such converted land for any other non-agricultural purpose.

5. It was further argued that the said application remained pending for a period of more than two years. Meanwhile, Rule-13 was deleted by GSR 42 dated 06.10.2003, therefore, the application moved by the firm was dealt with under Rule-14(1) and the Collector vide order dated 22.06.2005, allowed the re-conversion of their land from industrial to agricultural. After the deletion of Rule-13, there was no provision in Rajasthan Industrial Areas Allotment Rules 1959 for simple re-conversion of khatedari land from industrial to agricultural where the khatedar had to close-down the mill/industry established on such land, as was the case with the firm M/s Assam Roller Flour Mills. Therefore, Rule-14 was amended in the year 2010, which reads as under:

“Amendment of Rule-14 – The existing subrule (1) of rule 14 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Industrial Areas Allotment) Rules 1959 shall be substituted, namely:

(1) Any person who has surrendered his khatedari land and got the land allotted on lease for the setting-up of an industry may at anytime apply to the Collector for reverting the land for the original use. In such case, the Collector shall pass an order for reversion and on such reversion the status of the land shall be the same as it was before he had surrendered his khatedari rights, but he shall not be entitled to get refund of any amount paid by him for the conversion or otherwise. If the person whose land was reverted to original use intends to use the said land for other non-agricultural purposes, he may apply to appropriate authority for conversion under the relevant rules.”

6. The submission was that Rule-13 & 14 as deleted/amended from time to time made it clear that when the firm M/s Assam Roller Flour Mills got re-converted its land from industrial to agricultural, the land in question acquired the status of agricultural land.

7. The firm M/s Assam Roller Flour Mills Ltd. by virtue of Deed of Conveyance registered as document No.2005001787 dated 25.07.2005 before the office of Sub-Registrar-VII, Jaipur, sold all its rights in the said agricultural land against valuable consideration in favour of the petitioner and accordingly mutation was sanctioned in favour of the petitioner.

8. The petitioner vide application dated 01.09.2005 applied for conversion of the said land from agricultural to commercial. Under the Master Development Plan of Jaipur, 2011, the land in question was shown in Industrial Zone. Therefore, modification in the Master Development Plan was also required to be made with the sanction of the State Government. For this purpose, an Agenda dated 28.10.2005 was prepared by the JDA. While preparing the agenda, a mistake occurred. In the agenda it was needed to be written that on change of land use (upantaran) fro