The main legal point established in the judgment is that the State must adhere to the Rules governing land allotment, and any action affecting a citizen's rights must satisfy the principles of reasonableness and be free from arbitrariness.

Abhay Sapre, C.J.:--

1. This is an intra-court appeal filed by the State (respondent of WP (C) No. 727 of 2004) under Gauhati High Court Rules against the orders dated 13.09.2005 and also against an order dated 14.11.2006 passed by the single Judge in aforementioned writ petition and in review petition being Review Petition No. 9 of 2006 respectively.

2. By impugned orders, the learned single Judge allowed the writ petition filed by the writ petitioner (respondent herein) and passed the consequential order against the State authorities for their compliance and further gave certain directions to the State while dismissing the review petition.

3. So the question which arises for consideration in this appeal is whether learned single Judge was justified in allowing the writ petition and further while dismissing the review petition of the State was justified in giving directions to the State?

4. In order to appreciate the issue involved and urged by the parties, it is necessary to state few relevant facts.

5. The dispute relates to allotment/cancellation of land bearing CS dag No. 1680 of Sheet No 12, measuring around 1.054 acres situated within the Imphal Municipality limits at Imphal.

6. The respondent (writ petitioner) is a registered society. It is formed for propagating the Hindi amongst the tribal population throughout the State. In order to augment the activities of the society, the respondent made two applications dated 29.8.77/21.9.77 for allotment of the land to their society. One was made to Revenue Minister and the other was to Director of Settlement for allotment of the aforesaid land. It was alleged that during pendency of their applications, since the por­tion of the land in question was allotted to two individuals namely N. Prabin Kumar Singh and Mrs. Faizilatun Nesha, it was challenged by the respondent in one civil suit as being bad in law. It was stated that the civil court by its judgment dated 6.1.2004 decreed respondent’s suit and quashed the allotments made in favour of these two individuals. It was alleged that since no appeal was filed by the two individuals and hence the judgment cancelling the allotment became final. The respondent thus prayed for allotment of the said land to them for augmenting the object of their society.

7. The State considered the applications and vide order dated 21.1.1993 allowed the same in part by allotting to the respondent only a portion of the aforesaid land measuring 0.793 acres out of total 1.054 acres. The allotment was made on following terms and conditions.

(1) The allottee shall pay premium as may be fixed by the Deputy Commissioner, Imphal (now DC/IE) within 6 (six) months.

(2) The allottee shall pay land Revenue.

(3) The allotted land shall be resumed by the Government.

(i) if used for the purpose other than that for which it has been allotted.

(ii) if not put to use for the purpose for which it has been allotted within 2 (two) years of the allotment.

8. On 25.1.1993, the respondent then applied to Deputy Commissioner under proviso to Rule 18 of the MLR & LR (Allotment of Land) Rules (for short hereinafter called “the Rules”) claiming exemption from payment of premium for the land in question. Since no order on this application was passed by the Deputy Secretary and hence the respondent filed one reminder application and prayed for passing orders on their exemption application. It is not in dispute that till date no order is passed by the Deputy Secretary on their application and the application is awaiting its disposal in accordance with law.

9. On 25.11.2003, a show cause notice was issued by the State to the respondent proposing therein to cancel the allotment of the land made in respondent’s favour. The grounds on which the cancellation was proposed was that firstly respondent has failed to pay the premium, secondly the respondent has failed to execute the deed of allotment in relation to the land in question and thirdly the respondent has failed to obtain th