By the Court.—The appellant is a borrower. He took a loan from the respondent - State Bank of India, Branch Dibai, to the tune of Rs. 2 Lacs for the purchase of a Tractor. The appellant admittedly defaulted in making repayment of the said agricultural loan that was disbursed in the year 2001. Consequently, recovery proceedings were initiated and a Citation of recovery was issued for recovery of the amount of loan as arrears of land revenue under the provisions of the U.P Zamindari Abolition & Land Reforms Act, 1950 read with the 1952 Rules.

2. The challenge in the writ petition giving rise to this appeal was to the Citation of recovery dated 3.4.2010 whereby a sum of Rs. 2,17,000/- was sought to be recovered together with 10% recovery charges. The learned single Judge upon the concession made by the appellant - petitioner that he is ready to pay the entire amount of loan with interest in easy installments, proceeded to pass an order on 25.5.2010 fixing the time period for the repayment and if the said schedule was adhered to, it was also provided in condition No. II that in case the installments are deposited in the Bank, then half of the collection charges only shall be recovered from the petitioner.

3. Learned counsel for the appellant contends that the grievance now only remains with regard to half of the recovery charges that are to be recovered from the appellant under the impugned judgment.

4. To substantiate his submissions, learned counsel has cited 5 decisions before us. The first decision is in the case of Ram Niwas v. State of U.P. and others, Special Appeal No. 260 of 2010 decided on 22.3.2010; the second decision is in Bed Veer Singh v. State of U.P. and others, Writ Petition No. 14518 of 2008 decided on 18.3.2008; the third decision is in the case of Satish v. State of U.P. and others, Writ Petition No. 9483 of 2002 decided on 6.3.2002; the fourth decision is in the case of Raj Kumar v. State of U.P. and others, Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 33704 of 2006 decided on 3.7.2006; and fifth decision relied on is in the case of Mirza Javed Murtaza v. U.P. Financial Corporation, AIR 1983 All 234 (Paragraph No. 16).

5. On the strength of the said decisions, learned counsel contends that since no steps for actual recovery of the amount had been undertaken, the respondents are not entitled to realise any collection charges from the petitioner. He further submits that mere issuance of Citation by itself is of no consequence as it does not amount to an undertaking of actual steps for recovery.

6. Learned Standing Counsel Sri Pipersenia, on the other hand, contends that the recovery is made in view of the provisions of Section 279 of the U.P. Z.A. & L.R. Act read with the Rules framed thereunder. He submits that the contention advanced on behalf of the petitioner and the decisions relied on do not consider the impact of the provisions of sub-section (2) of Section 279 of 1950 Act. He contends that the legal position cannot be diluted and the decisions that have been relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner are founded on concessions extended by this Court in the exercise of extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution which cannot be said to be laying down a law for waiving recovery charges after the issuance of a Citation by the Collector. He, therefore, submits that the said decisions are clearly distinguishable and hence the appeal deserves to be dismissed.

7. Before proceeding to consider the impact of the judgments relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellant, it deserves to be mentioned that the recovery in the present matter arises out of a Citation issued by the Collector of the district for recovering the defaulted amount of loan from the appellant as arrears of land revenue. The said recovery is being made under Section 279 of the U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act 1950 which is quoted below :

“279. Procedure for recovery of an arrear of land revenue.—[1] An arrear of land revenue m