The Circle Officer Circle No: 2 Hiranagar passed an order on 28.11.1973 on mutation No: 406 regarding correction of girdawari entries with respect to land comprised under Survey No: 460 of village Hamirpur pertaining the year, 1971, The said order was assailed in appeal before the Deputy Commissioner, Kathua, who accepted the appeal and remanded the case back to Circle Officer, Circle No: 2 Tehsil Hiranagar. The order of Deputy Commissioner was challenged in Second appeal before the Financial Commissioner, when it was transferred in terms of Section 21 (5) of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act to the Revenue Minister on 12.11.1979. Thereafter, on 8.7.1986 the case was transferred to J&K Special Tribunal for adjudication. The Second appeal was treated as revision by the Tribunal in terms of mandate of Section 21 of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act.

I have gone through the memo of Second appeal which was originally presented before the Financial Commissioner, J&K. The grounds taken therein were basically on the appreciation of evidence. One of the grounds which could have been entertained in the revision was that the appeal filed before the Deputy Commissioner was time barred, and the appellant in his appeal before, the Financial Commissioner had submitted that without a valid reason the question of limitation was not considered by the Deputy Commissioner. I have also gone through the order of the Deputy Commissioner, who has stated in his order that the appellant before him had preferred the appeal on 26.2.1974, although the impugned order before him had been passed on 28.11.1973. As such, there was a delay of more than thirty days in filing the appeal. The learned Collector (Deputy Commissioner) found that the appeal had been filed in a Civil Court, when the Agrarian Reforms Act had been just passed. Therefore, he held that the provisions of Section 14 of the limitation Act were attracted, because the appellant before him had committed a bonafide mistake of filing the appeal in a wrong forum. Even the Civil Court had entertained the appeal on wrong notions; therefore, the learned Collector (DC) condoned the delay, accepted the appeal and remanded the case back to Circle Officer. By remanding the case back, he did not decide the inter interests of the parties.

In the Second appeal, as had been already pointed out here-in-above, a plea was taken that the first appeal should not have been entertained as it was time barred. The Special Tribunal has held that the appeal was time barred. In addition to that, the Tribunal has also appreciated the evidence and justified the order passed by the Circle Officer/Tehsildar.

I have heard learned counsel for the parties and gone through the record of the case. In these proceedings Under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, this Court has limited scope in going into the matter and confines itself to examine whether the Tribunal has gone wrong while interpreting or implementing any provisions of law. Sub-Section 5 of Section 21 of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, makes it clear that the Second appeal which was pending before the Financial Commissioner, was transferable to the Revenue Minister when the said Act came into being, and the Second appeal had to be treated as a revision. The Tribunal had become a successor to the Revenue Minister, and accordingly, the Tribunal had to treat the Second appeal as a Revision. The parameters for entertaining a Revision as laid down in Subsection 2 of Section 21 of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 are, as under:

"The Revenue Minister may at any time call for the record of any case in which a Tehsildar or an Assistant Commissioner has passed orders in respect of any evacuees land or State land or of any case in which Commissioner has passed final-order and if he finds that a question of law or public interest is involved in the case, he may pass such orders thereon as he thinks fit."

From a bare perusal of the said provision of law, it becomes clear that

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