The Financial Commissioner does not have the power to enter upon a dispute involving usage or sharing of water for irrigation purposes or to revise any order passed either by the Canal Officer or the Divisional Canal Officer.

This appeal has been preferred by the writ petitioners against the judg­ment and order dated 28.09.2012 passed by the learned Writ Court in OWP No. 635/2010, whereby the writ petition has been dismissed with costs quanti­fied at Rs.20,000/ to be paid by the writ petitioners.

2. In the writ petition, the appel­lants challenged the orders dated 15.04.2008 and 09.05.2008 passed by respondent No. 1 (Financial Commis­sioner) in an appeal filed by the private respondents against mutation orders No. 722 to 741 dated 04.09.2006; No. 742 to 761 dated 16.12.2006; and mutation order No. 762 dated 02.06.2007 passed by Tehsildar concerned. The appellants in the aforesaid writ petition also chal­lenged conversion of the appeal by re­spondent No. 1 into a revision petition and the proceedings conducted by re­spondent No. 1, first in the appeal and after its conversion, in the revision petition. The appellants also sought a writ of mandamus/prohibition direct­ing the respondents not to cause any interference in their possession over the land covered by the aforesaid mu­tations and further, not to cause any kind of stoppage of irrigation water to these lands in any manner whatsoever.

3. It may be mentioned here that by the aforesaid order dated 15.04.2008, respondent No. 1 had directed that Deputy Commissioner - respondent No. 2, Kargil was to ensure that the position regarding use/sharing of wa­ter for irrigation as it benefits the lands of the private respondents was not to be allowed to their disadvantage till fur­ther orders not withstanding the en­tries recorded by the Patwari /Tehsildar, as alleged. By the subse­quent order dated 09.05.2008, respon­dent No. 1 had treated the appeal filed by the private respondents as a revi­sion petition and directed that the or­der passed on 15.04.2008 was to apply mutatis mutandis.

4. Fundamentally, the challenge in the writ petition was founded on three grounds: first, that the mutations im­pugned in the appeal/revision petition before respondent No. 1 having been passed by the concerned Tehsildar un­der Ailan No. 10 of 1979 (Samvat) read with Ailan No. 38-C of 1989 (Samvat), no appeal or revision would lie before respondent No. 1; second, that the prin­cipal grievance of the private respon­dents in their appeal/revision before respondent No. 1 being about sharing of irrigation waters; no appeal or revi­sion would lie before respondent No. 1; third, consequently upon the above, respondent No. 1 had no jurisdiction to either entertain the appeal/revision or to conduct any proceedings thereon or to pass any orders thereon, muchless the orders actually passed by respon­dent No. 1. Specific averments in this regard were made in paragraph 4 of the writ petition.

5. When the aforesaid writ petition came up for consideration before the learned Writ Court, while issuing notice, the following order came to be passed in the accompany IA No. 1041/ 2010:

"As the question of apportionment of water between the residents of differ­ent areas is concerned, it will be ap­propriate to direct the Canal Officer to consider the claim of the parties and take a decision thereon after afford­ing opportunity of hearing to the par­ties within a period of two weeks from the date copy of this order is served on him. The Canal Officer will con­sider and pass appropriate orders ir­respective of issuance of the orders by the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, J&K, and for facilitating the disposal of the matter by the Canal Officer or­ders dated 15th April, 2008 and 9" May, 2008 shall remain in abeyance till next date before the Bench."

6. Subsequently, the official respon­dents filed their objections/reply to the aforesaid writ petition wherein they simply relied on the order dated 03.08.2010 passed by the Canal Officer, a photocopy whereof was appended with the objections. In the said order, the Canal Officer stated that as the Khul (water course) had been constructed and maintained by the Zamindars themselves, therefore, as per t