A suit for cancellation of a sale deed is generally maintainable in a civil court, even if the defendant's name has been recorded as a tenure-holder in the revenue records.

( 1 ) OPPOSITE party No. 3 had filed a suit being O. S. No. 324 of 1987 in the Court of Addl. Munsif magistrate for cancellation of a sale deed dated 27. 1. 1987 with a prayer to inform the sub-Registrar and for cost or any other relief on the allegations that there was no necessity to execute the sale deed by the plaintiff In favour of the defendant and that the plaintiff had never intended to transfer nor had ever transferred the property to the defendant. She never went to the office of Registrar to execute the sale deed. She had never put her thumb impression on the alleged sale deed. The sale deed appears to have been signed by someone else and was wrongly registered The plaintiff had never received any consideration. The said fact would be apparent from the fact that the consideration in the sale deed was shown shockingly low and the transfer was inconsistent with the provisions of Section 168 of the U. P. Z. A. and L. R- Act. The sale deed was an outcome of old enmity between the parties and was never executed by the plaintiff and as such the same is not binding on her.

( 2 ) THE defendant petitioners had filed an objection as to the maintainability of the said suit in a civil court in view of Section 331 of the U. P. Z. A. and L. R. Act. This application was allowed by the learned trial court by an order dated 10. 7. 1989. A revision being Revision No. 205 of 1989 was filed by the plaintiff. By an order dated 20. 3. 1991, the learned 1st Addl. District Judge. Court Jaunpur, allowed the revision and the order of the learned Munsif was set aside holding, inter alia, that the present suit is maintainable in a civil court. This order has since been challenged in this petition.

( 3 ) MR. Prem Chand assisted by Mr. Praveen Kumar Srivastava submits that from the averments made in the plaint, the relief has been claimed on the basis of a fact that the sale deed is a void one, as such relying on the decision in the case of Smt. Dulari Devi v. Janardan Singh and others, 1991 (9) LCD 331, he contends that if the deed is void, in that event the same can be ignored by the revenue authorities and, therefore, it is not necessary to be decided by a civil court and as such the proceedings before the revenue authorities is maintainable and that before the civil court could not be maintainable in view of the bar provided in the respective revenue laws. According to him by provisions of Section 331 of the Act the suit is barred under Serial No. 34 of the schedule II which provides for jurisdiction of the revenue authorities in respect of a declaration of a right in respect of the suit property. Therefore, the trial court had rightly decided the issue while the revisional court had failed to exercise its jurisdiction and had acted irregularly in reversing the order of the learned trial court against the legal position.

( 4 ) MR. S. L. Yadav, learned counsel for the opposite party on the other hand contends that in the present case no right under the U. P. Z. A. and L. R. Act is being sought to be adjudicated upon in the civil court. Even no consequential relief is being asked in the said suit. According to him. Schedule 11 does not prescribe any forum for grant of relief in the form of cancellation of the sale deed. The suit as framed does not come within the purview of Sections 229b and 229c which can be brought within the ambit of Serial No. 34 of Schedule II to the Act. On this ground he contends that the suit is very much maintainable in the civil court. He relies on various decisions which he had cited at the Bar and the same will be dealt with at appropriate stage.

( 5 ) I have heard Mr. Prem Chand and Mr. Yadav at length.

( 6 ) SECTION 331 of the U. P. Z. A. and L. R. Act prohibits jurisdiction of the civil court in respect of the matters prescribed in the Schedule 11. The said section provides that except as provided in the Act no Court other than a Court mentioned in Column 4 of Schedule II shall take cognizance of