IMPORTANT POINT
The requirement for filing a civil suit for the declaration of rights when a cloud is cast on the title of a person.

JUDGMENT :

ANISH KUMAR GUPTA, J.

1. This writ petition has been filed with a prayer that the Joint Inquiry Report dated 22.5.2019 submitted by the Additional District Magistrate (Finance & Revenue), District Moradabad and the Assistant Inspector General (Registration), District Moradabad in respect of a sale-deed executed on 4.7.1956 and registered on 25.7.1956, which was found to be registered as Document No. 1335, at Bahi No. 1, Jild No. 892 at Page Nos. 265 to 266 and was registered before the Sub-Registrar, Moradabad, be quashed.

2. A further prayer has been made that the petitioner be not proceeded against with regard to the registered document i.e. sale-deed dated 25.7.1956 in pursuance of the Inquiry Report dated 22.5.2019.

3. The petitioner has contended that a sale-deed was registered on 25.7.1956 in favour of one Vijay Kumar Sharma, the father of the petitioner herein and the vendor was one Smt. Prem Kunwar, widow of Prasadi Lal. It is the further contention of the petitioner that the name of Sri Vijay Kumar Sharma was mutated on 25.10.1956. Further it has been argued that after Vijay Kumar Sharma died on 13.2.2011, an application for mutation was moved by the petitioner which came to be dismissed on 6.11.2015 on the ground that the application was barred by the provisions of Section 49 of the Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953. He further submits that thereafter the petitioner filed a revision before the Board of Revenue, which was allowed on 20.1.2017.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner thereafter states that an application was filed before the Consolidation Courts under Rule 109A(1) of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Rules, 1954, in which the name of the petitioner was entered in the plots in dispute being Plots No. 370/1, 370/2, 371/1, 371/2, 372, 373, 379/1 measuring total rakba 2.81 acre, Mauza Majhauli, Tehsil Sadar, District Moradabad. It has been submitted that the numbers of the plots were re-numbered and were also reduced in area during consolidation. The four plots now bore Nos. 280Ka, 282, 283, 289Ka). The petitioner has stated that the predecessor in the interest of intervenor, Sri Ram Bahadur and Sri Ram Kripal had though purchased the same plots in question on 16.9.1961, had no title in those plots as the plots had already been sold on 25.7.1956. Learned counsel for the petitioner therefore states that no right was flowing to the predecessor in the interest of the intervenor on account of the sale deed dated 10.9.1961.

5. Since there was interference in the plots in question and the mutation etc. was being hindered the petitioner filed an original suit being Original Suit No. 148 of 2013 and in it releif was for a declaratory decree declaring that the sale-deed dated 16.9.1961 executed in favour of the predecessor in the interest of defendants in the suit was null and void. There was also a prayer for permanent injunction that the defendants in the suit may not disturb the possession of the petitioner. This suit came to be dismissed on 11.7.2023. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that the order impugned in the writ petition had come in the way of the civil suit and therefore, after the civil court had decreed the suit on the basis of the impugned Joint Inquiry Report dated 22.5.2019 the instant writ petition was filed. Learned counsel for the petitioner therefore has ultimately prayed that the Joint Inquiry Report dated 22.5.2019 be set aside.

6. Sri K.M. Asthana, learned counsel for the petitioner has vehemently argued that the Joint Inquiry Report which is in the form of the order dated 22.5.2019 could not have been passed by respondent nos.2 and 3 i.e. Additional District Magistrate (Finance & Revenue), District Moradabad and the Assistant Inspector General (Registration), District Moradabad as they had neither the authority nor jurisdiction to conduct the said inquiries. They also had no authority to annul the sale-deed of the petitioner dated 25.7.1956. He has submitted that in