JUDGMENT : In this group of writ petitions the main questions raised are common. The facts requisite for the decision of the common questions are also similar. All these can conveniently be decided by one judgment.

2. The petitions are under Art. 226 of the Constitution. They pray that the orders of the authorities constituted under the U.P. Large Land Holdings Tax Act, 1957 be quashed.

3. In response to notices served on the petitioners under S. 7(2) of the Large Land Holdings Tax Act, the petitioners filed returns showing the annual valuation of their land holdings. The assessing authority did not accept the returns and called upon the petitioners to prove it. The petitioners filed oral and documentary evidence in support of their case that certain disputed areas of land were not theirs but were the holdings of their wives or sons or brothers in view of a partition of the joint family properties between the members of the family, by a partition decree or by a will or by a partition deed. In some cases the petitioners urged that they had transferred the land to other and that they were not liable to be taxed for such areas.

4. The assessing authority did not accept the petitioners' c

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