Hon’ble Pankaj Mithal, J.—The following brief facts giving rise to the present writ petition would suffice the purpose.

2. Petitioner alleges that being a landless agricultural labourer, he was granted lease (Patta) of plots No. 2240 and 2241 of two acres each situate in village Gariya, Pargana & Tehsil Jhansi, District Jhansi for agricultural purposes by the Land Management Committee (L.M.C.) of the village concerned in the year 1980. Petitioner is in possession of the said land eversince then but his name could not be mutated in the revenue records due to some mistake on the part of the Lekhpal. Thus, he filed a suit under Section 229-B of the U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act, 1950 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for declaring his rights over the said land. The suit was dismissed by the Assistant Collector (First Class) vide judgment and order dated 30.12.1995. Petitioner challenged the aforesaid order in appeal and the same was allowed by the Additional Commissioner (First) on 29.2.1996 after setting aside the judgment and order passed by the trial Court. However, the aforesaid appellate judgment and order was set aside in revision by the Board of Revenue by the impugned judgment and order dated 18.5.2004.

3. Petitioner has filed this writ petition seeking writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the judgment and order dated 18.5.2004 passed by the Board of Revenue allowing the revision of the State of U.P. respondent No. 1.

4. Heard D.B. Tripathi and Sri M.K. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel and Sri Anuj Kumar for the respondents.

5. The record of the writ petition, the counter-affidavit filed by respondent No. 4 and the rejoinder affidavit thereof has been perused by me.

6. The submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioner has been non-suited on the ground that photocopy of the certificate of lease produced by the petitioner is inadmissible in evidence. He submits that as it has been accepted that the original record has been lost therefore, photo-copy of the certificate of lease is admissible as secondary evidence in view of the Section 63 read with Section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act.

7. Sri Rajesh Kumar, learned Standing Counsel as well as Sri Anuj Kumar, learned counsel for Gaon Sabha, to counter the above submission submitted that under the provisions of the Act as well as Rules framed thereunder, whenever a person is admitted as a lessee over the Gaon Sabha land, a certificate of lease is issued to the person concerned. Even if the record of the authorities stood destroyed, petitioner could have produced the original of the certificate to prove the grant of lease. The revisional Court has not erred in refusing to rely upon the photocopy of the certificate and in passing the impugned order.

8. Admittedly, the land in question is recorded as Banzar land in the revenue records. Petitioner is not a recorded tenure holder or the lessee of the same. Therefore, burden to prove that the said land was allotted to the petitioner after following the procedure prescribed is upon the petitioner who is alleging the same. Petitioner has not produced any resolution of the Land Management Committee resolving to allot the land in his favour or a copy of the order of approval of any such resolution or the lessee or the certificate of lease in original. He has only brought on record a photocopy of the certificate of lease and has tried to prove the lease by oral evidence. Oral evidence in respect of a matter which can be established with certainty by a documentary evidence pales into insignificance.

9. Ordinarily documents are required to be proved by leading primary evidence i.e. the document in original. Secondary evidence of a documentary evidence is admissible only in certain cases as enumerated under Section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. One of the cases in which secondary evidence is admissible is when the original is destroyed or lost. A copy of the origi