The court ruled that refusal to delete a deity's name from land records lacked justification and emphasized that petitioners' legitimate claims should not be disregarded due to the absence of legal representation for the deity.

JUDGMENT :

ARINDAM SINHA, J.

1. Mr. Sarangi, learned advocate appears on behalf of petitioners. He submits, his clients are purchasers of a part in a patch of land, in respect of which there was mention of the deity in the record. Other purchasers got mutation on deletion of the deity’s name. In his clients’ case, the mutation was allowed but prayer for deletion, rejected.

2. On earlier occasion, Mr. Sharma, learned advocate, Additional Government Advocate appearing on behalf of State had drawn attention to order dated 13^th June, 2003 admitting the mutation petition, carrying direction upon the Tahsildar to add the Endowment Commissioner as party and proceed with the case. On query from Court Mr. Sharma submits, the order was made by the Commissioner (L.R.) and Settlement, Board of Revenue, Orissa, Cuttack. The Tahsildar on proceeding with the case made impugned order dated 3^rd September, 2016, refusing to delete name of the deity in the RoR. In this connection, we reproduce paragraph-4 from order dated 29^th August, 2023.

“4. State will be heard to demonstrate provision in law requiring mutation to carry name of vendor in the land record.”

3. Mr. Sharma submits, the writ petition is not maintainable since efficacious alternative statutory remedy of appeal is available to petitioners. Without prejudice, he relies on judgments of the Supreme Court.

(i) Chandigarh Administration v. Jagjit Singh reported in (1995) 1 SCC 745 , paragraph-8. We reproduce below a passage from the paragraph.

“Generally speaking, the mere fact that the respondent authority has passed a particular order in the case of another person similarly situated can never be the ground for issuing a writ in favour of the petitioner on the plea of discrimination. The order in favour of the other person might be legal and valid or it might not be. That has to be investigated first before it can be directed to be followed in the case of the petitioner. If the order in favour of the other person is found to be contrary to law or not warranted in the facts and circumstances of his case, it is obvious that such illegal or unwarranted order cannot be made the basis of issuing a writ compelling the respondent authority to repeat the illegality or to pass another unwarranted order.”

(ii) State of Bihar v. Upendra Narayan Singh reported in (2009) 5 SCC 65, paragraph 67. We reproduce below a passage from the paragraph.

“In our view, the approach adopted by the Division Bench was clearly erroneous. By now it is settled that the guarantee of equality before law enshrined in Article 14 is a positive concept and it cannot be enforced by a citizen or court in a negative manner. If an illegality or irregularity has been committed in favour of any individual or a group of individuals or a wrong order has been passed by a judicial forum, others cannot invoke the jurisdiction of the higher or superior Court for repeating or multiplying the same irregularity or illegality or for passing wrong order.”

4. Mr. Nath, learned advocate appears on behalf of the Commissioner and submits, the deity is a perpetual minor. The Tahsildar duly maintained name of the deity in the record as the land belongs to it.

5. We have perused impugned order. Nevertheless, to be certain we made query to appearing learned advocates for demonstrating that impugned order says something about the earlier mutation made in respect of other purchasers on deletion of the deity’s name, as was incorrectly done. There is no such demonstration. So much so, we find the Com