JUDGMENT

A. K. PARICHHA, J. : Petitioner, which is a Company incorpo¬rated under the Companies Act, 1956 and engaged in the business of development of property has prayed for quashing of Annexures 4 & 6, the order passed by the Collector, Puri in B.P.L. Case No.2 of 1999 and the appeal order of Revenue Divisional Commissioner, Central Division, Cuttack in O.G.L.S. Appeal No.1 of 2001 respec¬tively. The case of the petitioner can be summarily narrated as follows:

Some persons of West-Bengal and Orissa desirous of owning dwelling units in Puri town approached the petitioner for pur¬chase and development of a property at Puri so as to provide them their desired dwelling units. Petitioner accordingly negotiated with the landowners and purchased the land in question (hereinaf¬ter called as ‘case land’) situated at VIP Road, Puri from the recorded owners and applied to the Puri Development Authority for sanction of building plan to accommodate 63 residential apart¬ments. It also applied to the Revenue authorities for transfer and grant of permanent lease of the case land in its favour. Tahasildar, Puri caused enquiry into the said petition and sub¬mitted his report for approval by the Collector, Puri. The latter approved the transfer of the lease in favour of the peti¬tioner, but taking note of the fact that the petitioner was con¬structing flats for customers levied annual rent at the commer¬cial rate and directed that the lease agreement in favour of petitioner shall be executed in Form III of O.G.L.S. (Amendment) Rules, 1993. Learned Collector also imposed a penalty of 12 times of the annual rent as the lessees transferred the case land in favour of the petitioner without obtaining prior permission of the Collector violating the condition of the lease. Aggrieved with such order of the Collector imposing commercial rent, penal¬ty and directing execution of the lease in Form III petitioner preferred O.G.L.S. Appeal No.1 of 2001 raising contentions that it did not utilize the case land for commercial purpose, but simply constructed residential units on the land for interested persons on self finance basis and it is, therefore, not liable to pay commercial rent or execute the lease in Form III. It also challenged the legality of the penalty imposed by saying that there is no provision for levying such penalty. The said appeal having been dismissed, petitioner has filed the present writ petition with the prayer to quash that order, Annexure-6 together with original order Annexure-4.

2. Opp.parties 2 and 3 in their joint counter supported the orders Annexures-4 & 6 and inter alia contended that the case land was purchased by petitioner from the lessees vide Sale deed Nos. 2593 dated 18.07.1998, 4271 dated 21.8.1998 and 4272 dated 16.10.1998 without taking prior permission of Collector, Puri which constituted violating condition No.2 of the lease agreement and accordingly petitioner is liable to pay penalty. They also stated that petitioner obtained permission from Puri-Konark Development Authority vide Order No.32 dated 21.1.1999 for con¬struction of a seven storied building containing 63 residential apartments and sold those apartments to different persons obtain¬ing commercial benefits and as per the guidelines provided in Revenue Department G.O. No.10055-G.E.(GL)-59/75 (Annexure-A/3) petitioner is liable to pay annual rent on commercial basis. They further claimed that since the case land was used for commercial purpose and purchasers of residential apartments are neither the lessees nor did they themselves apply for lease, therefore, petitioner was asked to execute the lease agreement in Form III as provided under Clause 2(a) and (f) of Schedule ‘V’ of O.G.L.S. (Amendment) Rules, 1993.

3. Mr. G. Mukherjee, learned counsel for petitioner states that 63 interested persons approached the petitioner to acquire and develop property for them on self-finance basis and in re¬sponse petitioner acquired the case land from the previous lease