The Deputy Director of Consolidation can only set aside proceedings or orders if they are found to be irregular, illegal, incorrect, or improper.

Present petition arises out of proceedings under Sections 20/21 of the U. P. Consolidation of Hold ings Act, for short the Act, and is directed against the judgment and order dated 14-12-1993 passed by Respondent No. 1 whereby revision filed by the contesting Respondents No. 2 to 6 was allowed.

2. It appears that the Assistant Con solidation Officer proposed to allot Chak No. 178 to the petitioner and chak No. 694 to the contesting respondents. The respondents filed objection that they were entitled to allotment of chak No. 178. The objection filed by contesting respondents was contested by the petitioner. Parties produced evidence in support of their cases. The Consolidation Officer upheld the claim of the petitioner and rejected the objection filed by the contesting respon dents by his judgment and order dated 27-4-1992. Challenging the validity of the said order, an appeal was filed by the con testing respondents before the Settlement Officer Consolidation. The Settlement Officer Consolidation also dismissed the appeal and confirmed the order passed by the Consolidation Officer by his judgment and order dated 30-6-1992. Thereafter, the contesting respondents filed a revision before the Deputy Director of Consolida tion under Section 48 of the Act. The Deputy Director of Consolidation without recording any findings that the order passed by the Settlement Officer Consolidation was either irregular, im proper, incorrect or illegal, interfered with and set aside the order passed by the Set tlement Officer Consolidation and al lotted the contesting respondents chak No. 178 by impugned order. Hence, the present petition.

3. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that under Section 48 of the Act, the Deputy Director of Consolidation can not act as a Consolidation Officer. He can not interfere with the findings recorded by the authorities below and cannot substitute his own findings for the findings recording by them unless they are found to be incorrect, illegal or improper. The Respondent No. 1 in the impugned order, according to him, did not hold that the findings recorded by the authorities below were illegal or

incorrect, but set aside the orders passed by the authorities below, therefore, the order passed by the Deputy Director of Con solidation was liable to be quashed.

4. On the other hand, learned Coun sel for the contesting respondents sup ported the validity of the orders passed by the Deputy Director of Consolidation. It was urged that the findings recorded by the Deputy Director of Consolidation were based on relevant evidence on the record. They were all findings of fact, which could not be interfered with by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

I have considered the submissions made by learned Counsel for the parties and also perused the record.

Section 48 of the Act reads as under:

48. Revision and reference.- (1) The Director of Consolidation may call for and examine the record of any case decided or proceedings taken by any subordinate authority for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the regularity of the proceedings; or as to the cor rectness, legality or propriety of any order other than interlocutory order passed by such authority in the case of proceedings and may, after allowing the parties concerned an oppor tunity of being heard, make such order in the case of proceedings as he thinks fit.

(2) Powers under sub-section (1) may be exercised by the Director of Consolidation also on a reference under sub-section (3 ).

(3) Any authority subordinate to the Director of Consolidation may, after allowing the parties concerned an opportunity of being heard, refer the record of any case or proceed ings to the Director of Consolidation for action under sub-section (1 ).

Explanation (1)-For the purposes of this section, Settlement Officers, Consolidation, Consolidation Officers. Assistant Consolidation Officers, Consolidator and Consolidation, Lekhpals shall be subordinate