Revenue Officers performing mutation duties act in an administrative capacity and lack jurisdiction to adjudicate the validity of a will; such disputes must be decided by a Civil Court.

ORDER

The present Petition has been filed in the matter of mutation. The Respondent has a will in his favour on the basis of which he had applied for mutation before the Revenue authority.

2. The matter ultimately landed before the Board of Revenue and the Board of Revenue held that the original authority i.e, Tahsildar should carry out fresh scrutiny of the matter and after enquiring into validity of will, should pass a fresh Order. The Tahsildar was also directed to take into account the Order dated 09.02.2016 passed in Civil Suit No.418 A-2011 by First Civil Judge, Class II Sirmour, District Rewa whereby the application for substitution of legal representative of respondent was allowed holding that it amounts to the Civil Court finding the respondent to be the successor of deceased.

3. A Full Bench of this Court in Writ Petition No.3499/2022 ( Anand Choudhary Vs. State of M.P. and Others ) decided on 14.02.2025 has held that the Revenue Courts have no power and authority to enquire into validity of will by taking evidence. The Full Bench has held as under:-

"75. In view of the aforesaid discussion, we answer the question referred to us in the negative and hold that Tehsildar cannot reject the application for mutation at threshold on the ground that it is based upon will. However, in view of detailed discussion made by us above, it would be appropriate to summarize our conclusions serially as under:-

1) The Tehsildar while dealing with cases of mutation under sections 109and 110 MPLRC between private parties, does not perform judicial orquasi-judicial functions, but only performs administrative functions and therefore, he is not authorized to take any evidence for the purpose of deciding applications for mutation.

2) The Tehsildar can entertain application for mutation on the basis of will. However, it would be obligatory upon him to enquire about the legal heirs of the deceased and notice them in view of provisions of section 110(4) MPLRC .

3) Sections 109 and 110 have to be read alongwith Section 111 M.P.L.R.C. and a bare reading of Section 111 of M.P.L.R.C. leads to conclusion that where-ever rights of private parties are involved, then it will only be for the Civil Court to adjudicate the disputed cases. The jurisdiction of the Revenue Officers in the matters of mutation in Revenue records, is merely administrative.

4) A dispute as to validity of will, competence of testator to execute will or existence of two rival wills of testator, or a dispute as to validity of any other non-testamentary registered title document as enumerated in Form-1 of Mutation Rules of 2018 would create a dispute relating to any right which is recorded in the record of rights and arising during either mutation or correction of entry would be such a dispute.

5) In case any dispute as mentioned in para (4) above is raised between private parties, then the Tehsildar would not have any competence to decide the dispute and it would be for the parties to approach the civil court to get the dispute adjudicated, in terms of detailed discussion contained in para-74above. Such matters will either be disposed or kept pending and reported to the Collector in terms of Section 110 (7) MPLRC by the Tehsildar, in the manner discussed in detail in this order.

6) The decision in disputed cases as contemplated under Section 110 (4)M.P.L.R.C. does not give any authority to the Tehsildar to decide such dispute and assume powers of Civil Court by going into the authenticity of will or of any non-testamentary registered title document and that outer time limit has to be read only to determine whether a dispute exists in the matter and granting opportunity to parties to approach the Civil Court. If such approach to Civil Court is not made or despite approach no injunction is granted by Civil Court, then mutation will be carried out on basis of succession by ignoring disputed testamentary document and in case of non-testamentary registered title documents, by g