1. Lasso Malik had two daughters, Mst. Jana and Mst. Haja. Mst. Jana, the elder daughter, claims to be the exclusive and absolute owner of the properties left by Lasso Malik, being her dukhtere-khana-nashin, whereas Mst. Haja, the younger one, seeks half share in the properties of her father, on the basis of a Will executed by him on April 3, 1964.

2. Mst. Haja, respondent No.1, had accordingly filed a suit for permanent injunction for a direction to the petitioners to refrain from depriving her from her share of the landed property and house belonging to late Lasso Malik, in the Court of Munsiff, Banihal.

3. Munsiff, Banihal transferred this suit to Collector, Agrarian Reforms, Ramban, who vide his order of April 11, 1984, allowed it and declared Mst. Haja, respondent No.1 entitled to half share in the properties of her father in terms of his Will.

4. Petitioner Nos.1 and 2s appeal against Collector, Agrarian Reforms, Rambans order did not succeed and was accordingly dismissed on September 29, 1997. Jammu and Kashmir Special Tribunal, when approached by the petitioners too did not find any merit in their revision petition and accordingly dismissed it vide its order of October 31, 2001.

5. Mst. Jana, her husband and Abdul Hamid, petitioner No.3, have filed this writ petition calling in question the orders passed by the authorities under the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Sharma submitted that the orders passed by the Authorities under the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, (hereinafter to be referred as the Act), are without jurisdiction and that the Authorities had failed to advert to, much less, adjudicate upon the question of jurisdiction raised by the petitioners before them. According to the counsel, the dispute raised by respondent No.1 in her suit was not a dispute which could be taken cognizance of by the Authorities under the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act and the order of transfer of respondent No.1s suit to the Collector was bad in law as the Civil Court had refused to exercise jurisdiction in deciding respondent No.1s suit on merit.

7. Justifying the findings recorded by the Authorities under the Act, Mr. O.P. Thakur, learned counsel for respondent No.1, submitted that learned Munsiff was right in transferring the suit to the Collector and the findings recorded by the three Revenue Authorities on facts cannot be questioned by the petitioners invoking extra ordinary writ jurisdiction of the Court. Learned counsel submitted that having acquiesced to the jurisdiction of the Authorities under the Act, the petitioners are estopped from questioning their jurisdiction and assailing the orders questioned in the writ petition.

8. Both the learned counsel have heavily relied on the two full Bench decisions of this Court in Jagtu and others versus Badri and others, reported as AIR 1980 J&K 1 and Mohd. Hussain versus Rahim and another, reported as 1986 KLJ 170, in support of their respective submissions.

9. I have considered the submissions of learned counsel for the parties, gone through the orders passed by the Authorities under the Act and the case law cited at the Bar.

10. In order to decide the issue raised in this writ petition as to whether respondent No.1s suit was cognizable by the Civil Courts or by the Authorities under the Act, regard needs to be had to what was held by this Court in Jagtu and others versus Badri and others (supra) where the Court was dealing with the expression appearing in Section 19(3)(e) of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972 as it so exists even today in the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 (amended) where this Court had held as follows: -

26. Sub-clause (e) of Section 19(3) will not, however, apply to suits or proceedings which merely involve the determination of question of title or right on the basis of succession and inheritance or partition without claiming possession. Where a suit for declaration

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