JUDGMENT :

1. Both the aforementioned cases are taken up together, as they arise of common proceedings.

2. Sri Shyam Mohan Pradhan, Advocate along with Dr. R.K. Srivastava, Advocate for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the respondent are present.

3. By means of the instant petition the petitioner has challenged the proceedings and orders passed in proceedings under the provisions of the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act 1960 (hereinafter referred as 'Act of 1960').

4. It has been submitted that a notice under Section 10(2) of the Act of 1960 was issued to the original tenure holder Sri Labh Singh S/o Mehtab Singh, which was served on him on 03.12.1974. As per the said notice, it was proposed to declare 83.57 Acres of land as 'Surplus'.

5. The original tenure holder filed his objections to the said notice and stated that he had sold major portion of the said land by executing registered sale-deeds of 12.05 Acres on 03.06.1970 in favour of Gur Bachan Kaur; of 12.05 Acres on 08.04.1970 in favour of Jitendra Singh; of 12.05 Acre on 08.04.1970 in favour of Binder Kaur; of 12.05 Acre on 03.06.1970 in favour of Gurmeet Singh; of 12.05 Acre on 03.06.1970 in favour of Beayant Singh Kaur; of 12.30 Acre on 03.06.1970 in favour of Indrapal Singh; of 11.24 Acre on 18.04.1970 in favour of Arvind Kaur; and he further submitted that all these sale-deeds have been executed prior to the cut-of-date, i.e. 24.01.1971, prescribed in the Act of 1960 and hence the said land ought to be excluded from the holdings of the original holder. It was further submitted that after excluding the said lands there was no land, which exceeded the ceiling-limit, which is prescribed in the said Act, and accordingly prayed for discharge of the notice issued to him. The original tenure holder had filed evidence of all sale-deeds before the Prescribed Authority and also examined himself in support of the objections raised by him.

6. The Prescribed Authority after considering all the material on record and also going through the sale-deeds, agreed with the objections filed by the original tenure holder and excluded all the lands, which have been alienated on the basis of the aforesaid sale-deeds and discharged the notices issued to the original tenure holder.

7. The controversy in the present case has started on issuance of another notice under Section 10(2) of the Act of 1960 on 08.07.1991 to Dheeraj Singh, who is the son of the original tenure holder. The objections were filed by taking the plea that this aspect of the matter has already been considered by the Prescribed Authority, when he had issued notice with regard to the same holding to the then original tenure holder Labh Singh and on the basis of the sale-deeds he had discharged the notices. It has been submitted that once notices were discharged, proceedings under the Act of 1960 came to an end and the Prescribed Authority had discharged the notices after due consideration of all the evidence on record, especially the sale-deeds where his holding was sold to seven persons prior to the cut-of-date.

8. The State, on the other hand, submitted that the sale-deeds executed by Labh Singh were Sham and fictitious and have been entered into only to evade the ceiling proceedings under the Act of 1960. It has also been stated that all the vendees were minor, at the time the sale-deeds were executed and they were also minor on the date of coming into effect of the said Act and, in fact, the land had at all times been vested in the original tenure holder and subsequently in the petitioner, who is his son. In this way, it has been submitted that the petitioner held land more than the land as prescribed under the Act of 1960 and consequently, there was no infirmity in subjecting him to the proceeding under the said Act.

9. The Prescribed Authority by means of an order dated 22.06.1993 rejected all the objections raised by the petitioner and declared 59.182 Acre as the 'Surplus Land'. He returned a finding th