The captioned writ petition is filed by the purchaser,

feeling aggrieved by the order passed by respondent

No.2/Assistant Commissioner, who has ordered restoration

of petition land on the premises that the land in question

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is a granted land, and the said order is confirmed by

respondent No.1/Deputy Commissioner.

The impugned orders are liable to be quashed

on two counts. On perusal of Annexure-B, it is squarely

evident that respondent No.3 participated in a public

auction and purchased the petition land in an auction. On

perusal of Form No.1 issued by the authority, which is a

grant certificate, which is issued in terms of Appendix-E to

the Mysore Land Revenue Code, 1888, it is clearly evident

that though it is styled as a grant certificate, the same has

to be treated as a title document. The fact that the

authority has issued Form No.1 clearly leads to an

inference that it is not a grant in favour of the depressed

class. The issue in regard to the grant certificate issued

under Form No.1 is no more resintegra. The Apex Court in

the case of B.K.Muniraju .vs. State of Karnataka¹ has

held as under;

1 (2008) 4 SCC 451

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"The document in question has been styled as

"certificate of grant". In order to know the real

nature of the document, one has to look into the

recitals of the document and not the title of the

document. The intention is to be gathered from

recitals in the deed, conduct of the parties and

evidence on record. It is settled law that question of

construction of a document is to be decided by

finding out intention of the executant, firstly, from a

comprehensive reading of the terms of the document

itself, and then, by looking into, to the extent

permissible, the prevailing circumstances which

persuaded the author of the document to execute it.

With a view to ascertain the nature of a transaction,

the document has to be read as a whole. A sentence

or term used may not be determinative of real

nature of transaction."

The law laid down by the Apex Court is squarely

applicable to the present case on hand. Respondent

No.2/Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction to order

for restoration as the petition land is not a granted land as

defined under Section 3(e) of the PTCL Act, 1978 (for

short, 'Act'). Therefore, I am of the view that the order of

restoration

passed

by

respondent

No.2/Assistant

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Commissioner is one without jurisdiction. Respondent

No.2/Assistant Commissioner could not have invoked the

provisions of the Act and should not have exercised the

power/authority conferred on him under the provisions of

the Act.

4.

These relevant aspects are not dealt by

Respondent No.1/Deputy Commissioner and respondent

No.2/Assistant Commissioner. Respondent No.1/Deputy

Commissioner

and

respondent

No.2/Assistant

Commissioner, being quasi-judicial authorities, have not

taken pains to examine the nature of grant, and therefore,

the order of restoration not only amounts to abuse of

process but has led to miscarriage of justice as bonafide

purchaser's valuable rights are taken away by way of

summary

proceedings.

Respondent

No2/Assistant

Commissioner had no authority to annul the sale deed.

5.

Even on the ground of delay, the restoration

petition is liable to be rejected as there is delay of 8 years.

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The law laid down by the Apex Court in the case of

Nekkanti Rama Lakshmi .vs. State of Karnataka and

another² and Vivek M. Hinduja .vs. M. Aswatha³ are

squarely applicable to the present case on hand. The

Hon'ble Apex Court in the above cited judgment has held

that where statute does not provide for limitation, the

authorities and State must act consciously and if the

process of invoking the provisions of statute is delayed

and is initiated after long lapse of time, the delay by itself

would act as an impediment. Thus, without exception and

coming across various rules of law, the Apex Court has

categorically stated the law in respect of exercise of

power/jurisdiction under statute where no limita