Badri Yadav vs Sat Narain Das And Ors.

1. The appellant claims to be the Bataidar (under-raiyat) of the 3.10 acres of land in Khata Nos. 178 and 78 of Mouza Barbhara, P.S. Tarapur, Dist. Monghyr. According to him, he was in the land for more than 25 years. Respondent No. 1 who is the owner of the land tried to dispossess him and hence the appellant under the provisions of Section 48-E of the Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') approached DCLR, Sadar for preventing his dispossession. The DCLR, Sadar constituted a Board under the said Section and referred the matter to the Board for settlement and if there be no settlement, for decision according to law. Since there was no settlement, the Board held an inquiry into the dispute with regard to the rights of the appellant. Witnesses of both the parties were examined. It transpired in the evidence that the appellant who was a Mukhya had prevented the earlier cultivators of the land viz., Kesheo Mandal and Kulanand Chaudhary from cultivating the land, and consequently there were criminal proceedings under, Section 145 of Criminal Procedure Code, between the parties with regard to the said land three years prior to the commencement of the present Bataidar proceedings and the land was not being cultivated by anyone in view of the said criminal proceedings. The dispute arose for the first time in 1973, when the appellant preferred the present application.

While deposing before the Board in 1976, the appellant gave his age as 35-56 years. His claim was that he had taken the land on Bataidar from respondent-landlord 20-25 years ago. The Board rightly concluded that this would mean that the appellant was engaged as bataidar at the age of 10 years which was not possible to be believed. In view of this fact and the other evidence on record which clearly showed that the previous cultivators were Kesheo Mandal and Kulanand Choudhary, the Board came to the conclusion that the appellant's claim as Bataidar not tenable. The DCLR, Sadar agreed with the said conclusion, and rejected the appellant's claim as Bataidar.

Against the decision of the DCLR, the appellant preferred an appeal before the Additional Collector, Monghyr. The Additional Collector rejected the appeal on the ground that in view of the fact that the DCLR had agreed with the findings of the Board, no appeal lay against the decision of the DCLR. In proceedings under Article 227 of the Constitution, the High Court summarily rejected the petition filed by the appellant.

2. We find that there is no error of law committed either by the Additional Collector or the High Court. The provisions of Section 48-E of the Act are clear in this behalf. They are also consistent with the scheme of the Act and particularly with Chapter VI and VII thereof. The appeal lies to the higher authorities only when there is a disagreement between the finding of the Board and that of the revenue officer. Since the findings of the Board are subject to the scrutiny by the revenue officer, the legislature has rightly avoided provision for an appeal against such findings when the officer concurs with the findings. On the facts of the present case also, we are more than satisfied that the question whether the appellant was the Bataidar or not rested on a pure factual investigation and the record of the case shows that the findings suffer from no infirmity.

3. The appeal, therefore, stands dismissed. In the circumstances of the case, however, there will be no order as to costs.