The court established that public spaces in densely populated areas must be preserved, and allotments that infringe on residents' rights are invalid.

ORDER

1. This writ petition has been preferred claiming the following reliefs:

"(a) by an appropriate writ, order or direction, this petition may kindly be allowed with costs and the impugned judgment dated 29.03.2017 (Annexure-5) passed by the learned District Collector, Sirohi passed in Revision Petition under Section 327 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 may kindly be set aside and the Revision Petition of the petitioners may kindly be allowed and accepted as prayed for and consequence thereof, the allotment of land in question called as strip of land as allotted to the respondent no. 3 and execution of sale deed under bearing number npasi/bhoomi/2014-15-217 dated 21.10.2014 (Annexured-2) may kindly be cancelled and set aside and the construction if any has been raised over this strip of land in question may kindly be demolished and the same may kindly be make free for use it as part of the public chowk."

2. That the parties are residing in a very densely populated cluster of residential houses situated at Rajmata Dharamshala Road in Sirohi, and there is a small passage between the residential houses for free movement of the residents, which has been allotted as a strip of land to the present respondent No.3; furthermore, such a small public place in between the high density cluster of residential houses is the breathing space.

3. That the petitioners have filed a revision petition under Section 327 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 for cancellation of allotment of the aforementioned strip of land, as also the sale deed dated 21.10.2014, which was dismissed by the District Collector, Sirohi vide order dated 29.03.2016 on the ground that the nature of the land in question - whether it was an old time possession or it was a land of public space or not - could only be determined by the competent civil court.

Rule 327 of the Rajasthan Municipal Act, 2009 reads as follows -

327. Power to call for records.-

(1) The State Government or any officer authorized in this behalf by the State Government, may, for the purpose of being satisfied as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any order or resolution passed or purporting to have been passed, under this Act by or on behalf of a Municipality, its Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, any member or officer, call for the relevant record, and may, in doing so, direct that pending the examination of such record, such order or resolution shall be kept in abeyance and no action in furtherance thereof shall be taken until such examination by the State Government or by the officer authorized in this behalf by the State Government and the passing of order under sub-section (2).

(2) On examining the record the State Government or the officer authorized as aforesaid may rescind, reverse or modify such order or resolution and the order of the State Government or the officer authorized as aforesaid shall be final and binding on the Municipality.

4. That the civil proceedings were also initiated, which have culminated into passing of the following order by this Hon'ble Court in Civil Writ (CW) No.9400/2016 on 19.10.2016 (Annexure-6):

"Mr. Rajesh Shah, learned counsel for the petitioners after arguing the matter at some length requests that he may be allowed to withdraw the writ petition so that the petitioners can pursue their application for cancellation of allotment of the disputed land pending before the District Collector, Sirohi.

Accordingly, the writ petition as well as the stay application are dismissed as withdrawn. It is expectedtnat we collector snail consider and decide we petitioners' application as per law."

5. That while the aforementioned writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn by this Hon'ble Court on 19.10.2016, the petitioners were not aware about the fact that the District Collector has already dismissed their claim under Section 327 of the Act of 2009.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioners cited the following judgments at the Bar in support of their claims -

(a) Chiman Lal