Entertaining appeal by Land Tribunal filed beyond time.

ORDER. — This revision petition was filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India before its amendment, questioning the authority of the remand order passed by the Land Tribunal (Principal Subordinate Judge), Tiruchirapalli, in C.M.A. No. 87 of 1974. The facts of the case are: The petitioner herein is an assignee of the surplus lands acquired by the Government and the said assignment was made in his favour on 19th September, 1973. The Authorised Officer (Land Reforms), Pudukkottai, on 19th September, 1973 after carefully examining the claims of the applicants before him, allotted to the petitioner herein 2.02 acres of land in Survey field No. 71/3 as per rule 8 (4) of the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Disposal of Surplus Land) Rules, 1965 as amended in G.O. Ma. No. 1870 dated 8th September, 1969. Before such an assignment, the Authorised Officer declared the surplus land of the third respondent herein as 15 standard acres. The third respondent was given an opportunity as the trustee of the Govindadas Ganshyamdas Private Family Trust, to give particulars specifying his desire regarding the lands to be retained by the trust. Even though time was taken, the third respondent herein did not furnish the particulars as called for. Hence the Authorised Officer (Land Reforms) Tiruchirapalli, passed an order under section 10 (3) of the said Act, specifying the land to be retained by the landowner within his ceiling area and stated that the lands specified by him in his order will be notified as suplus lands. It is the case of the petitioner that subsequent to the said order there was an order under section 10 (5), section 12 and finally under section 18 of the Act. In pursuance of such steps taken by the Government, the petitioner, as stated above, got the lands allotted on 19th September, 1973. The third respondent, as the trustee of Govindadas Ganshyamdas Private Family Trust, preferred an appeal to the Land Tribunal, Tiruchirapalli, against the order of the Authorised Officer dated 28th April, 1972, contending that the Authorised Officer had not considered the objection statement filed by him and that he should be given option to declare the extent of lands to be retained by him. This appeal was filed under section 78 of the Act. Sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 78 of the Act read as follows: —

“Section 78 (1): — Against any decision of the Authorised Officer under sections 9 (2) (b), 10 (3), (4) and (5), 16 (3) (a) (iii), 20, 22, 50 (4), 51 (1), (2), 52, 61 (3) (ft) or 102 (2) (b), the Government may, within thirty days from the date of the decision and any person aggrieved by such decision may within sixty days from the date of such decision, appeal to the Land Tribunal”.

“Section 78 (2): — The Land Tribunal may admit an appeal presented after the expiration of the period mentioned in sub-section (1), but not exceeding thirty days, if it is satisfied that the party concerned had sufficient cause for not presenting it within the said period”.

The Tribunal, after observing, “in the appeal the appellant (third respondent herein) has made an endorsement that he is willing to surrender some other lands as surplus instead of the lands chosen by the Authorised Officer as surplus; then once the appellant is found to own more than the ceiling area he should be given option to specify the lands to be retained by him and the surplus land which he desired to surrender; hence it is just and proper to remand the case to the lower Court to give opportunity to the appellant to specify the land to be taken as surplus from his holding”, allowed the appeal by setting aside the order of the Authorised Officer and remanded the matter back to the Authorised Officer for fresh disposal.

2. It is seen from the records that the appeal was filed after a delay of more than one year and an application was also filed before the Land Tribunal to excuse the delay. From the facts of the case, it is also clear that the appeal was filed only in December, 1973 whil

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