Power under Section 25 KLR Act only for revenue courts, not individual revenue officers: HC

The high court has said that a revenue officer cannot constitute himself as a revenue court just because he holds an office, not inferior in rank to that of a tahsildar.

A division bench observed this while passing an order in an appeal.

The appeal was filed by Taluk Panchayat, Chamarajanagar, challenging the order passed by a single judge with a direction to make entries of the names in the record of rights by way of inheritance khata. The name of the owner of the property was abruptly deleted by the revenue authorities and proceedings were initiated for getting the names re-entered in the RTC.

The deputy commissioner, Chamarajanagar district, sitting as a revenue court, ordered the restoration of the names in November 2006 under Section 136 (3) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act. Subsequently, a succeeding deputy commissioner passed another order in June 2007 under Section 25 of the Act rejecting the revision application.

A division bench, comprising Justice P S Dinesh Kumar and Justice P Krishna Bhat, observed that the order passed by the first deputy commissioner, under Section 136 (3) of the Act, was not challenged before the competent authority or court.

The bench said that power under Section 25 of the Act is available to be exercised only by the ‘revenue court’ and not by individual revenue officers.

The court said that exercising power under Section 25 of the Act must be for the determination of any question between the state government and any person or between parties to any proceedings. As there was no proceeding pending before the deputy commissioner for an inquiry he could not, in law, be a ‘revenue court’ in the case on hand, the court said.

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