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2001 DIGILAW 97 (PAT)

Ratnanand Jha v. State Of Bihar

2001-02-06

NARAYAN ROY

body2001
Judgment Narayan Roy, J. 1. Heard Mr. Shyam Sunder Sinha Shyam, learned Counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Ram Bilas Mahto, learned Counsel for the respondent No. 5 and J.C. to G.P. 2 for the State. 2. The grievance of the petitioner by this application is that the order passed by the Collector under Sec. 41 of the Bengal Survey Act, 1975 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) being the final order, was not assailable in appeal as there is no statutory provision of appeal against such order. 3. It appears that the petitioner applied for determining his boundary on the land in question and pursuant to his application, the Collector, in exercise of its power under Sec. 41 of the Act, determined boundary according to actual possession and directed to clear the same by boundary marks. The order as contained in Annexure 2 was not given effect to as the matter was resisted by respondent No. 5 and ultimately respondent No. 5 filed an appeal against the order as contained in Annexure-2 which was entertained and order as contained in Annexure-2 was set aside by order as contained in Annexure-3. 4. Sec. 2 of the Act defines the Collector which runs as follows: "Collector" means every Collector of a District, and includes every officer either generally or specially vested with the powers of a Collector for the purpose of this Act. 5. Under Part V of the Act, no statutory provision of appeal is there against an order passed under Sec. 41 of the Act rather it appears that the order passed under Sec. 41 of the Act by the Collector shall, until it be reversed or modified by competent authority, have the force of an order of any Civil Court declaring the Parties to be in possession of the land in accordance with the boundary as determined by the Collector. In absence of any statutory provision of appeal under the Act and specially under Part V of the Act, the order as contained in Annexure-3 must be held to be wholly without jurisdiction. 6. Hearing Counsel for the parties and considering the import of the law as noticed above, this application is allowed and the order as contained in Annexure-3 is quashed. The order as contained in Annexure-2 since has attained finality, the authorities are directed to execute the same and proceed in accordance with law.