SHRIMAL J.—These two special appeals Nos, 47 and 49 of 1977, preferred by Nand Lal and Ganesh Lal, under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949, are directed against the order, delivered in Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 1507 of 1976 and 1508 of 1976 on October 26, 1977, rejecting the writ peti-tions challenging the validity of the order of the Revenue Appellate Authority, dated August 27, 1976, holding that the transfers of the surplus land, transfer of which was. made after December 31, 1969, had no right of hearing and consequantly the appeals filed by then were not maintainable.

2. The facts giving rise to these special appeals are that the Sub Divisional Officer, Kota, (vide his order, dated July 12, 1976) refused to recognise the transfer of land made in favour of the appellants as the sale-deeds were executed after December 31, 1969 and the Sub-Divisional Officer further held that Bakhtawar Singh was liable to surrender 339.76 standard acres of land, being surplus land. He was given an option to select for himself and his sons land within the ceiling limit which he wanted to retain. It was urged that the Khatedar-tenant while exercising the option given to him included in the list of the fields to be surrendered, Khasra No. 39, measuring 29 Bighas and 1 Biswa, situate in village Chatinda, as also Khasra No. 38, measuring 13 Bighas and 1 Biswa of land, situate in village Bhojpura, alleged to have been transferred to petitioners Nandlal and Ganeshlal respectively. The petitioners raised an objection before the Sub-Divisional Officer, but without any success. The appeal filed before the Revenue Appellate Authority also resulted in fiasco.

3. Aggrieved of the impugned orders, the petitioners instead of filing revision petitions before the Board of Revenue, straightway approached this Court, seeking redress under Article 226 of the Constitution. But both the writ petitions Nos. 1507 and 1508 of 1976 were dismissed by the learned Single Judge.

4. As both these appeals emerge out of the same order and as common questions of law and facts are involved, they are being disposed of by this common judgment.

5. The contention of learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the petitioners, is that the statutory authority, namely, the Revenue Appellate Authority, has acted in contravention of law in not interfering with or in not reversing the order of the Sub-divisional Officer, accepting the encumbered land. Learned counsel further urged that the requirement of the second proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 30-E of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955, is that where the person, surrendering excess lands, holds lands of which some are encumbered and some are not encumbered, the unencumbered lands shall so far as may be, be surrendered in preference to encumbered lands. It has also been submitted that at no stage of the proceedings any notice had been issued to the petitioners. Non-giving of the notices to the transferee-petitioners violates the principles of natural justice. Placing reliance on Harnek Singh vs. State of Punjab (1) learned counsel argued that the petitioners were entitled to adequate opportunity to safeguard their interest under the proceedings, which culminated in adversely effect ting their right to property.

6. The arguments advanced before the learned Single Judge were reiterated before us. All these points, raised before us, have been exhaustively dealt with by the learned Single Judge. The learned Single Judge. The learned Single Judge has rightly observed that the decision in, Harnek Singhs case (1) (supra) dealt with the interpretation of Section 32-FF of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Land Act, 1954, and that there is no corresponding provision contained in Chapter III B of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955. It is a decision passed on the special facts of that case and is of no avail to the appellants. A perusal of Section 30-DD of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955, reveels that the transfers made upto Decembe

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