ORDER

The present petition under article 226 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order dated 20.03.2018 passed by SDO, Jhansi Road, Gwalior in case no.48/2016-17/59 whereby the SDO by invoking the powers under section 172(4) of MPLRC had assessed the land in question on the basis that commercial activities were being carried out by the petitioner on the aforesaid land which was in variance of the purpose for which the land was marked i.e. agriculture and, therefore, the value of the land was assessed as per the diverted land and accordingly a penalty was imposed which could be upto 20% of the market value of such diverted land.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the aforesaid exercise by the SDO was done without issuing any notice and without giving any opportunity of hearing, thus, since the entire exercise is against the principles of natural justice stands vitiated and, therefore, deserves to be set aside.

3. It was further submitted that the order impugned is clearly an ex parte order, and from the bare perusal of the said order, it would be evident that no notices were ever issued to the petitioner, but it has been mentioned there in that notices were served upon them, but they intentionally chose not to appear before the court, which is per se illegal, therefore, the order being perverse deserves to be set aside.

4. It has also been argued that while passing the order dated 20.03.2018, the SDO had on presumption assessed the rate of the land at Rs.4,40,00,000/-

per hectare without disclosing the evidence on the basis of which such rate was fixed of the land in question which being per se illegal cannot have been made the basis for assessment of the revenue.

5. It was further submitted that appellate authority has also not considered the said aspect and had dismissed the appeals for non-deposit of the 50% of the amount assessed as revenue.

6. On the basis of the aforesaid, it has been contended that the present petition deserves to be allowed and the impugned order (Annexure P/1) dated 20.03.2018 deserves to be set aside as well as the order of the appellate authority passed on 13.07.2023, also deserves to be quashed.

7. Per contra, Shri Deepak Khot, learned government advocate referring to section 172(4) of MPLRC submitted that the revenue authorities had found that the land in question was used by the petitioner for commercial purposes i.e brick kiln was being run on the said land and was also used for sand making which admittedly is a commercial use of the land apart from agriculture, therefore, invoking the aforesaid provision, the assessment of the land was done and had imposed penalty which could be extended up to 20% of the market value of such diverted land.

8. It has further been argued that as per Rule 17(1) of Madhya Pradesh Bhu Rajaswa Sanhita (Bhu-Rajaswa Ka Nirdharan Thatha Punnirdharan) Niyam, 2018 any person aggrieved by the order of SDO is required to deposit 50% of the amount prior to filing of the appeal and only thereafter the appeal would be maintainable and since the said amount was not deposited by the petitioner, therefore the authority had rightly dismissed the appeal on the said ground of non-deposit of the 50% of the amount.

9. It was further argued that apart from non-adherence to the principles of natural justice, since the petitioner has not raised any other ground, which touches the merits of the matter in the light of the provisions as contained under Section 172 of the MPLRC, the present petition deserves to be dismissed as under the aforesaid Section, no such provision of giving any app opportunity is provided , but herein case notices were issued to the petitioner, but he has chosen not to appear before the authority, therefore, even otherwise it cannot be said that no opportunity of hearing was granted. Thus, it was prayed that the present petition being of any substance is to be dismissed.

10. Heard the counsels for the parties and perused